The Joint GRACE Science Team Meeting 2012 and Final Colloquium of the DFG Special Priority Program SPP1257 "Mass Transport and Mass Distribution in System Earth" took place at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam between September 17 and 19, 2012. The meeting was organized by moderated sessions on specific themes, each consisting of invited and contributed presentations plus room for open-floor questions and answers. The format of the moderated sessions was in the responsibility of the respective conveners. The contributed abstracts were organized by subject, and delivered as either oral or poster presentations (see Meeting Program for further details). The meeting was opened with a brief Project Status session, which consisted of updates on the mission status, the flight segment technical status, and status and information on the latest reprocessed RL05 data release from the GRACE Science Data System.

The joint meeting was followed by a one day Sea Level Workshop on September 20 which was organized by the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) and the SPP1257. The program consisted of an introductionary talk "Why does sea level rise" by Maik Thomas (GFZ) on September 19 and nine invited talks on special topics .

Joint GRACE Science Team Meeting and DFG SPP1257 Final Colloquium

The GRACE mission celebrated its 10th anniversary in flight on March 17, 2012, with the satellites, instruments and ground systems still working well. The GRACE science operations concept for the remainder of the mission is driven by the project decision to operate the spacecrafts in a manner that maximizes the remaining lifetime, within constraints imposed by available battery capacity, such that the longest possible climate data record is available from GRACE. Following a comprehensive re-analysis, which was completed in March 2012, the GRACE Science Data System has released a homogeneously reprocessed time series using updated background models and processing standards (Release 05). These improvements have enabled considerable progress in analyzing mass transports and mass distributions in the Earth system. The launch of the GOCE satellite in March 2009 has further increased our knowledge of the static gravity field. GRACE-1 radio occultation measurements have routinely been generated since autumn 2006 and are already assimilated together with CHAMP, COSMIC and METOP RO data by weather services. A GRACE-FO mission, due for launch end of 2016, has successfully passed the Mission Concept Review in October 2011 and started Phase A in January 2012.

In 2006, the German Research Association (DFG) had established the priority research program SPP1257 „Mass transport and mass distribution in the system Earth”, in order to enable scientific analysis and interpretation of the data from the new generation of gravity and altimetry satellite missions. In the SPP1257, hydrologists, glaciologists, oceanographers, geophysicists, geodesists and mathematicians work together towards the understanding of Earth system processes. SPP1257 was funded for six years, between 2007 and 2012. The results which have been achieved within the different interdisciplinary projects shall be presented at the final SPP1257 colloquium which will be jointly organized with the GRACE Science Team Meeting.

The following documents are available for download:

• Meeting program for Monday (Sessions A.1, A.2)
• Meeting program for Tuesday (Sessions A.3, B.3)
• Meeting program for Wednesday (Sessions B.1, B.2, B.4)
• Abstract list
• List of registered participants (who agreed to publishing their name here)

Below you can download the presentations and posters from the Joint GRACE Science Team Meeting and DFG SPP1257 Final Colloquium, that were not rejected by the authors for publication. From rejected presentations only the first page is included. Posters are only included, if we got a pdf-version until October 12. For each session one zip-file is available. These files contain all presentations of the session. The files are named by session, presentation time and the first author.

• Introduction and GRACE SDS
• A.1: GRACE-Follow On
• A.2: GRACE Analysis Techniques
• A.3: GRACE & GOCE
• B.1: Solid Earth Sciences
• B.2: Cryosphere
• B.3: Oceanography and Sea Level
• B.4: Hydrology

Prgramm of the Joint Leopoldina-DFG SPP1257 Symposium „Sea Level“

• Introduction
  Prof. Herbert Fischer / KIT Karlsruhe and Prof. Jürgen Kusche / Bonn
• Greetings of the Vice-President of the National Academy Leopoldina
  Prof. Gunnar Berg
• Theme 1: Sea Level: Geometry, Variability and long-term Changes from Satellite Altimetry
  Dr. W. Bosch / DGFI München
• Theme 2: Satellite Gravimetry and its Role in Sea Level Research
  Prof. Reiner Rummel / TU München
• Theme 3: Loss of Mass from Glaciers and Ice Sheets
  Prof. Peter Lemke / AWI Bremen
• Theme 4: Postglacial Rebound and Sea Level
  Prof. Bert Vermeersen / NIOZ-Texel, Netherlands
• Theme 5: Ocean Warming and Recent Sea Level Change
  Dr. D. Chambers / Florida, USA
• Theme 6: Contribution of the melting Greenland ice sheet to Sea Level Rise
  Dr. Jens Schröter / AWI Bremen
• Theme 7: Problems in projecting Antarctica´s future Contribution to Global Sea Level
  Prof. Anders Levermann / PIK
• Theme 8: Simulations and Projections of Present and Future Sea Level Changes
  Prof. Detlef Stammer / ZMAW Hamburg
• Theme 9: Consequences of Sea Level Rise for the German Coast
  Dr. Ralf Weisse / Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht
• Discussion and Closing
  Prof. Herbert Fischer / KIT Karlsruhe and Prof. Jürgen Kusche / Bonn

The abstracts off all talks can be downloaded here.