Luc Lenain (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, USA)

In a series of experiments between 2011 and 2016, in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of California, directional wave field and the sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) measurements were collected by the Scripps Modular Aerial Sensing System (MASS) waveform scanning lidar. The MASS has also enabled the use of infrared (IR) radiometry and imaging to measure the sea surface temperature (SST) and process IR images to measure surface currents. Wavenumber spectra from both SSHA and SST have extended from approximately 3.10-3 to 1 cycle/km. In the recent CARTHE/LASER experiment in the Gulf of Mexico (2016) the airborne data were supplemented with surface-ocean-lower-atmosphere measurements from autonomous surface vehicles (Wave Gliders). In this presentation we will show comparisons of the SSHA measured by the lidar, Jason-I, AltiKa and AirSWOT, including spatial series and spectra. We will compare the lidar measurements of the SSHA with estimates from in situ measurements by other groups in the LASER experiment. We will discuss the processes underlying the high wavenumber part of the SSHA spectrum measured by the lidar but not resolved by the current generation of radar altimeters.