Assimilation of GRACE tide solutions into a numerical hydrodynamic inverse model

We assimilate localized mass anomalies inferred from GRACE ranging measurements into a hydrodynamic model to improve tidal solutions around Antarctica for the M2, S2, and O1 constituents. The variational approach used accounts for the spatial averaging of tidal elevations implicit in the mass anomaly parametrization used for the GRACE tidal analysis, as well as spatial correlation of errors in the resulting estimates. The inverse solution shows better agreement with independent station tide measurements around Antarctica, and it reduces cross‐over residuals for ICESat laser altimeter data over the Filchner, Ronne and Ross Ice Shelves, demonstrating that GRACE data can provide useful constraints for improving hydrodynamic tidal models at high latitudes.