Research Finds Discrepancies Between Satellite and Global Models of Land Water Storage

Research led by The University of Texas at Austin has found that calculations of water storage in many river basins from commonly used global computer models differ markedly from independent storage estimates from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Jan. 22, raise questions about global models that have been used in recent years to help assess water resources and potentially influence management decisions. The study used measurements from GRACE satellites from 2002 to 2014 to determine water storage changes in 186 river basins around the world and