Articles | Volume 18, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-1747-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-1747-2026
Data description article
 | 
09 Mar 2026
Data description article |  | 09 Mar 2026

Multidecadal reconstruction of terrestrial water storage changes by combining pre-GRACE satellite observations and climate data

Charlotte Hacker, Benjamin D. Gutknecht, Anno Löcher, and Jürgen Kusche

Data sets

Multidecadal statistical reconstruction of GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) like terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWSA) incorporating geodetic tracking data Charlotte Hacker et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15827789

Catchment-Averaged Monthly Evaporation Timeseries 1984–2020 Derived from GRACE-like TWS Change via Terrestrial Water Budgets Benjamin Guknecht et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16643628

International Combination Service for Time-variable Gravity Fields (COST-G) Monthly GRACE/GRACE-FO RL02 Series U. Meyer et al. https://doi.org/10.5880/COST-G.ICGEM_02_L2

GPCC Climatology Version 2022 at 0.25°: Monthly Land-Surface Precipitation Climatology for Every Month and the Total Year from Rain-Gauges built on GTS-based and Historical Data R. Elke et al. https://doi.org/10.5676/DWD_GPCC/CLIM_M_V2022_050

LOBMAP global Leaf Area Index since 1981 (Version 3.0) R. Liu et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4700264

Data from: Long-term (1979-present) total water storage anomalies over the global land derived by reconstructing GRACE data F. Li https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6bt

GRACE-REC: A reconstruction of climate-driven water storage changes over the last century V. Humphrey and L. Gudmundsson https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7670849.v3

Global terrestrial water storage reconstruction using cyclostationary empirical orthogonal functions (1979-present) Chandanpurkar et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6659543

IGG-SLR-DORIS: Monthly gravity field solutions from SLR and DORIS A. Löcher et al. https://doi.org/10.5880/ICGEM.2025.001

ERA5 monthly averaged data on single levels from 1940 to present Copernicus Climate Change Service https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.f17050d7

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Short summary
Terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWSA) enable the study of changes in water storage. However, observational records of TWSA are limited to 2002 onwards. To overcome this limitation, we provide a long-term TWSA data set for the global land from 1984 to 2020 by combining a data-driven approach with time‑variable gravity observations from geodetic tracking data. The data set retains seasonal consistency and adds reliable long‑term signals due to the data combination. 
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