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GRACE-FO Level-2 Monthly Geopotential Spherical Harmonics JPL Release 6.3 (RL06.3)

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

FOR EXPERT USE ONLY. This dataset contains estimates of the total month-by-month geopotential of the Earth, derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission measurements, produced by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The data are provided as spherical harmonic coefficients, averaged over approximately a month, and available from 2018 onward. These coefficients are derived from the Microwave Instrument (MWI) measured intersatellite range changes between the twin spacecraft of the GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On) mission. The GRACE-FO mission, a joint partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), launched on 22 May 2018. It uses twin satellites to accurately map variations in the Earth's gravity field and surface mass distribution. It is designed as a successor to the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission. This GRACE-FO RL06.3 data is an updated version of the GRACE-FO RL06.1 Level-2 data products. RL06.3 differs from RL06.1 only in the Level-1B accelerometer transplant data that is used for the GF2 satellite: Level-2 RL06.3 uses ACH1B RL04 that is contained within the ACX2 Level-1 bundle, which replaces ACH1B RL04 contained within the ACX Level-1 bundle that was used for Level-2 RL06.1 (note: ACX2-L1B is only applicable for 01/2023 onwards in wide-pointing operational mode; from 6/2018 through 12/2022, RL06.1 and RL06.3 GRACE-FO data are identical and based on ACX; ACX2 is not available for 03/2023-06/2023 as the satellites were not in wide-pointing mode during that period). All GRACE-FO RL06.3 Level-2 products are fully compatible with the GRACE RL06 level-2 fields. Refer to the mission page for more information.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
Publisher NASA/JPL/PODAAC;NASA/JPL/GRACE-TELLUS-0001
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/GFL20-MJ063
Data Last Modified 2025-09-11
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id ace21df1-152a-4581-92ed-7e89eb943a2a
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/CitingPODAAC
Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"NorthBoundingCoordinate":89,"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-89}
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash a4d58c0464fdcd5a36b480b3b5604c57e3acf52771e2b399cab327329a95d673
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2018-05-22/2018-05-22

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