Fanny Piras (CLS, France); Jean-Christophe Poisson (CLS, France); Amandine Guillot (CNES, France); François Boy (CNES, France); Nicolas Picot (CNES, France)

For more than 20 years, altimeter missions have been providing measurements of the ocean. Depending on their characteristics, orbit (altitude, pointing, ...), on-board hardware (frequency, bandwith, antenna gain pattern, pulse repetition frequency, ...), on-ground processing (retracking algorithm, corrections, ...), their performances can be computed, compared and explained. The objective of this presentation is twofold. The first aim is to provide to the users, large performance intercomparison references based on different metrics such as Sea Surface Height spectra or standard deviation. The knowledge of these metrics should allow them to improve/optimize their use of the altimeter data set. The second one is to give keys to agencies to anticipate the future altimeter mission peformances depending on their main characteristics.
Based on the analysis of many altimeter mission data set (Envisat/RA-2, ERS, Jason (1/2/3), Saral, HY-2, Cryosat-2), we propose to give an overview of the main results illustrating their relative performances.