Contrasting behavior of July 2021 floods in Western Europe and Central
China revealed by GRACE Follow-On ranging data
Abstract
The conventional monthly resolution of global gravity products from the
Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and its successor GRACE
Follow-On (GFO) greatly impedes their application to transient extreme
climate events like floods. Nevertheless, this study utilizes the
line-of-sight gravity difference between the twin GFO satellites,
reflecting the instantaneous surface mass changes below, to obtain water
mass changes at a resolution of days. This study investigates two floods
in July 2021 in Western Europe and Central China (CC), respectively, and
the high-resolution results present the temporal progression of the
floods up to a maximum of about 40 Gt. However, the GFO-derived water
gain in CC is much lower than expected. We speculate that intense human
manipulation of water resources mitigated the repercussions of the flood
in CC. This study presents the feasibility of GFO application in
fast-evolving climate events and highlights the effectiveness of
countermeasures by humans to flood hazards.