Abstract's details
Impact of the Sentinel-3A SRAL PTR Evolution on the L2 Marine Measurements
Event: 2019 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting
Session: Instrument Processing: Measurement and Retracking
Presentation type: Poster
The Sentinel-3A SRAL Point Target Response (PTR) Half-Power Width is drifting over the time. This drift has been estimated to be around -0.5 mm per year and is significant, being around five times the PTR width drift as measured for Envisat Altimeter and CryoSat-2 Altimeter.
In this work, we analyse the impact of this Sentinel-3A SRAL PTR evolution on the stability of the L2 marine geophysical measurement (sea level and wave height) in SAR mode over the full period of the mission.
A Sentinel-3A STM (surface Topography Mission) pole to pole L1b pass was selected and the waveforms in this pass have been retracked with a numerical SAR retracker embedding the evolving real Sentinel3-A SRAL PTR as measured during the CAL1 calibration during the mission time. By comparison of the significant wave height obtained by means of the numerical retracker, using the CAL1 PTR, and the the significant wave height from L2 marine measurements, an impact assessment of the PTR stability will be performed.
The impact in term of stability of the SRAL PTR evolution on the L2 marine measurements will be reported and discussed. The dependency of the impact with the sea state conditions will be investigated.
Back to the list of abstractIn this work, we analyse the impact of this Sentinel-3A SRAL PTR evolution on the stability of the L2 marine geophysical measurement (sea level and wave height) in SAR mode over the full period of the mission.
A Sentinel-3A STM (surface Topography Mission) pole to pole L1b pass was selected and the waveforms in this pass have been retracked with a numerical SAR retracker embedding the evolving real Sentinel3-A SRAL PTR as measured during the CAL1 calibration during the mission time. By comparison of the significant wave height obtained by means of the numerical retracker, using the CAL1 PTR, and the the significant wave height from L2 marine measurements, an impact assessment of the PTR stability will be performed.
The impact in term of stability of the SRAL PTR evolution on the L2 marine measurements will be reported and discussed. The dependency of the impact with the sea state conditions will be investigated.