Gravity Changes over Russian River Basins from GRACE - Planetary Exploration and Science: Recent Results and Advances - page 55

to be consistent with CNES RL03-v1 solutions for particular river basins
( www.thegraceplotter.com ) . Curves for all the rivers confirm the height maxima in
spring 2013. Different amplitudes of seasonal cycle and different trend behaviors for
European and Siberian rivers can be seen. Trends for European rivers (Fig. 3.6 , top)
are mainly decreasing, while for Siberian rivers (Fig. 3.6 , middle), they demonstrate
maxima in 2009 like the overall trend (PC 2) in Fig. 3.3 , top. Since the Siberian
river basins are very large (Table 3.1 ), they dominate the mass changes within
Russia. These river discharges are an important driver for Arctic climate change. If
to multiply the basin area from Table 3.1 by average mass change, the total water
storage anomaly can be calculated for each river.
The curve for Amur river in the Far East (Fig. 3.6 , bottom) is quite different from
others. The amplitude of its annual cycle is small, but since 2012, observed mass in
the basin of Amur is quickly increasing. In August 2013, huge flood occurred there,
caused by heavy precipitation. Recent studies (Reager et al. 2014 )haveshownthat
GRACE data incorporation sufficiently improves flood forecast.
Minimum in summer 2010 for Volga river (Fig. 3.6 , top) is a footprint of the
heat wave that occurred in the European part of Russia, accompanied by fires and
aerosol pollution, producing smoke and causing great difficulties for the habitants
of Moscow (Barriopedro et al. 2010 ).
Let us look at the map of a climatologically driven trend, captured by PC 2, in
Fig. 3.7 . The map of difference for PC 2 between 2003 and 2013 years showing the
changes of gravity that occurred since 2003 is much cleaner than the unfiltered map
in Fig. 3.1 . Himalayas glaciers melting, pattern of Sumatra earthquake coseismic
deformation, and changes in China, India, and Africa seen on the map are out of

− 10˚ 0˚ 10˚ 20˚ 30˚ 40˚ 50˚ 60˚ 70˚ 80˚ 90˚ 100˚ 110˚ 120˚ 130˚ 140˚ 150˚ 160˚ 170˚ 180˚

90˚ 90˚

80˚ 80˚

70˚ 70˚

60˚ 60˚

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40˚ 40˚

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0˚ 0˚

− 10˚ 0˚ 10˚ 20˚ 30˚ 40˚ 50˚ 60˚ 70˚ 80˚ 90˚ 100˚ 110˚ 120˚ 130˚ 140˚ 150˚ 160˚ 170˚ 180˚

cm

− 20.0 − 15.0 − 10.0 − 5.0 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0

processed by L.Zolov

Fig. 3.7 Difference between 2003 and 2013 years (2013-2003) for the trend component (PC 2)