CoAuthors

Shailen Desai (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States); Bruce Haines (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States); Rashmi Shah (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States); Matthieu Talpe (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States)

In this poster, we present calibration and validation results for the Jason-2 and Jason-3 measurement systems. Our results focus on the Jason-3 mission, with more than 1-year of data now available since launch, and the Jason-2 mission after its transition to the long-repeat orbit. Our results show that the transition of Jason-2 to its new orbit was seamless and that the products are consistent before and after the altitude was lowered by 27 km.

Because Jason-2 and Jason-3 are no longer in a tandem configuration and do not share the same ground tracks, cross calibration and validation can be performed using inter-mission differences at crossover locations, namely where their respective ground tracks cross. We use these inter-satellite crossover differences to compare the performance in terms of bias and noise for the typical altimetry measurements (e.g., sea surface height, significant wave height, backscatter, radiometer wet troposphere correction, etc). We also independently evaluate these measurements from each mission.

The validation results are based on the standard Geophysical Data Record products. We also consider alternative GPS-based orbit solutions from JPL. On one hand, this JPL orbit solution demonstrates the global quality of the Jason-2 and Jason-3 products in an independent manner. On the other hand, it reveals geographically-correlated orbit errors.