Abstract's details

Sentinel-3A Impact on Numerical Ocean Prediction

Gregg Jacobs (Naval Research Laboratory, United States)

Joseph D'Addezio (University of Southern Mississippi, USA); Pete Spence (VENCORE, USA)

Event: 2016 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting

Session: Application development for Operations

Presentation type: Poster

Sentinel-3A Impact on Numerical Ocean Prediction


Sentinel-3A provides a new opportunity to advance numerical ocean prediction with a unique sampling pattern in which subcycles produce ground tracks that progressively sample toward the east with each successive subcycle. The separation is about 104 km. On average mesoscale features propagate to the west, and the Sentinel-3A sampling is expected to increase the independent information with subcycle of data. The Sentinel-3A synthetic aperture processing (SAR) at 1 Hz posting is used in numerical predictions over a two-month time period. The first experiment uses all available observations, which includes Jason-2, Jason-3, CryoSat-2, AltiKa and Sentinel-3A. Though there is significant redundancy amongst these due to overlapping ground tracks, this first experiment is expected to provide a reasonably accurate result in terms of mesoscale eddy placement. Subsequent experiments use only Jason-2 and only Sentinel-3A for comparison of accuracy in sea surface height and mixed layer depth relative to the first experiment.

Corresponding author:

Gregg Jacobs

Naval Research Laboratory

United States

gregg.jacobs@nrlssc.navy.mil

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