Duration: 01-12-2013 - 30-06-2014

The realistic assessment of candidate constellations for a future satellite gravity mission dedicated to the observation of large-scale mass transport phenomena requires extensive end-to-end simulations:  starting from simulated orbits based on a realistic global model of large-scale mass redistributions that cause time-changes in the gravity field all the way down to the retrieval of global gravity field solutions and the application of appropriate post-processing techniques to remove spatially anisotropic errors. Critically important prerequisites for such simulations are (i) a model of the time-variable gravity field of the Earth that contains realistic variability on a wide range of spatial and temporal scales important for satellite gravimetry, and (ii) corresponding background models for the gravity field retrieval process to cope with high-frequency mass variability that otherwise aliases into the time-mean gravity fields. Those background models are to be derived from the source models by augmenting them with realistic errors that are correlated in time and space.