Hydrological Data for Geodetic Research

Explaining and predicting Earth rotation variations and geocenter motion requires a detailed accounting of the sources of mass variability at Earth's surface, including the water stored on and within the continental crust. This terrestrial water storage is composed of groundwater, soil moisture, surface waters, snow and ice, and biomass. The presentation will describe modern, global hydrological datasets which are currently available and the degree of accuracy that can be expected in each. These datasets include ground and satellite observation based products and output from sophisticated land surface modeling and assimilation systems. The latter may be the best hope for reliably constraining terrestrial water storage contributions to geodetic phenomena because they are able to integrate data from disparate sources and fill spatial and temporal gaps in the observational record.