Marco Meloni (SERCO c/o ESA, Italy); Tommaso Parrinello (ESA, Italy)

With the effects of a fast-changing Climate becoming more and more apparent in Polar Regions, it becomes increasingly important to understand how Earth’s ice fields are responding. Launched in 2010, the ESA’s CryoSat satellite was the first European Polar mission specifically designed to address this issue in measuring changes in the thickness of the sea ice and the elevation of the ice sheets and mountain glaciers. CryoSat has also demonstrated to be a valuable source of observations for measuring variations of inland water storage and ocean dynamics. The necessity to ensure long-term continuity and quality of altimetry measurements at high latitudes associated to the excellent technical status of the satellite’s systems, are the main rationals to extend the CryoSat mission’s operation as long as possible. The CryoSat data products require to continuously evolve and need to be routinely quality-controlled and thoroughly validated in order to address a growing number of Science Challenges. This paper provides an overview of recent ice and ocean product evolutions and Cal/Val activities performed by ESA and its partners. This paper also details the new concept of the "CryoSat ThEMatic PrOducts” (aka Cryo-TEMPO), which will aim at maximizing the use of CryoSat for thematic applications. For that, the Cryo-TEMPO framework should allow bringing together multi-disciplinary scientists and altimetry experts in order to define the future standards for ESA CryoSat products, including improved and targeted geophysical parameters associated to traceable quality indicators.