CoAuthors

Jerome Bouffard (ESA, Italy); Tommaso Parrinello (ESA, Italy)

The ESA Earth Explorer CryoSat-2 was launched on 8 April 2010 and from an altitude of just over 700 km and reaching latitudes of 88 degrees, monitors precise changes in the thickness of terrestrial ice sheets and marine ice. The aim of the CryoSat-2 mission is to determine variations in the thickness of the Earth's marine ice cover and understand the extent to which the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are contributing global sea level rise. CryoSat new Baseline-D ice data operational since May 2019 includes several evolutions as well as a new data format (NetCDF) compliant with other space-based observations. This paper provides one of the first detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the CryoSat ice Baseline-D data over the land ice and sea ice domains, covering all relevant mode-dependent Level-2 geophysical parameters (e.g. freeboard, ice sheet elevations, Polar sea level anomaly) and their comparisons with previous Baseline products and other source of ground and/or space-based observations. The Baseline-D upgrades will bring significant improvements to the quality of Level-1B and Level-2 products relative to the previous baseline products, which in turn are expected to have a strong positive impact on the scientific exploitation of the CryoSat mission over the cryosphere.