Analysis of The Itsg-Grace Daily Models in The Determination of Polar Motion Excitation Function

ABSTRACT The main aim of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of Institute of Geodesy at Graz University of Technology (ITSG) daily gravity field models in the determination of hydrological angular momentum (HAM) at nonseasonal time scales. We compared the equatorial components (χ 1 and χ 2 ) of HAM calculated with the ITSG daily gravity field models (ITSG-Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment [ITSG-GRACE] 2016 and ITSG-GRACE 2018) with HAM and sea-level angular momentum (SLAM) from hydrological land surface discharge model (LSDM) and the hydrological signal in the polar motion excitation (known as geodetic residuals [GAO]). Data from ITSG have a daily temporal resolution and allow us to determine oscillations with higher frequencies than the more commonly used monthly data. We limited our study to the period between 2004 and 2011 because of the gaps in GRACE observations before and after this period. We evaluated HAM obtained from ITSG GRACE models in spectral and time domains and determined the amplitude spectra of the analyzed series in the spectral range from 2 to 120 days. Our analyses confirm the existence of a sub-monthly signal in the HAM series determined from ITSG daily data. We observed a similar signal in LSDM-based HAM, but with notably weaker amplitudes. We also observed common peaks around 14 days in the amplitude spectra for the GAO- and ITSG-based series, which may be related to the Earth’s tides. ITSG daily gravity field models can be useful to determine the equatorial components of HAM at nonseasonal time scales.