With ongoing climate change, we are staring at possibly longer and more severe droughts in the future. Therefore, monitoring and understanding duration and intensity of droughts, and how are they evolving in space and time is imperative for global socio-economic security. Satellite remote sensing has helped us a lot in this endeavor, but most of the satellite missions observe only near-surface properties of the Earth. A recent geodetic satellite mission, GRACE, measured the water storage change both on and beneath the surface, which makes it unique and valuable for drought research. This novel dataset comes with unique problems and characteristics that we should acknowledge before using it. In this perspective article, I elucidate important characteristics of various available GRACE products that are important for drought research. I also discuss limitations of GRACE mission that one should be aware of, and finally I shed some light on latest developments in GRACE data processing that may open numerous possibilities in near future.

中文翻译：

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从 GRACE 监测干旱

随着持续的气候变化，我们正在关注未来可能发生的更长时间和更严重的干旱。因此，监测和了解干旱的持续时间和强度，以及它们在空间和时间上的演变情况对于全球社会经济安全至关重要。卫星遥感在这方面为我们提供了很大帮助，但大多数卫星任务仅观察地球的近地表特性。最近的大地测量卫星任务 GRACE 测量了地表内外储水量的变化，这使其对干旱研究具有独特性和价值。这个新颖的数据集具有独特的问题和特征，我们在使用它之前应该承认这些问题和特征。在这篇观点文章中，我阐明了对干旱研究很重要的各种可用 GRACE 产品的重要特征。