CoAuthors

Florence Birol (CTOH/LEGOS, France); Fernando Niño (CTOH/LEGOS, France); Florent Lyard (LEGOS, France); Sara Fleury (CTOH/LEGOS, France); Damien Allain (LEGOS, France); Rosemary Morrow (CTOH/LEGOS, France)

The CTOH (Centre of Topography of the Oceans and the Hydrosphere) is an independant research service dedicated to satellite altimetry studies. In order to optimise the number of sea surface height data which can be retrieve from conventional altimetry in the coastal area, the CTOH has developed a dedicated processing tool called X-TRACK. Since 2008, this software is used to compute regional altimetry products of 1Hz along-track Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) time series for all precise altimeter missions (Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1&2, Geosat Follow on and Envisat). The X-TRACK products are available over 23 coastal regions (see Figure below and http://ctoh.legos.obs-mip.fr/products/coastal-products/coastal-products-1/sla-1hz). They are regularly updated and are now distributed through the new AVISO+ web portal.
Since 2012, a regional product of along-track tidal harmonic constants (including the amplitude, phase lag and error estimates for a number of tidal constituents) is also routinely computed by harmonic analysis of X-TRACK SLA (using the TOPEX-Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 long time series); 23 regional datasets are also available. These different altimetry products have already been used for a wide range of regional applications.
Here, we present the latest product updates as well as preliminary results concerning the development of new research altimetry products dedicated to the coastal zone.