CoAuthors

Gerald Dibarboure (CLS, France); Amandine Guillot (CNES, France); Nicolas Picot (CNES, France)

In this paper, we take advantage of the recent AltiKa ground track drift from is nominal position to quantify the accuracy of recent MSS models. We also measure how the error increases as AltiKa departs from the charted ERS/ENVISAT track (i.e. where the MSS errors are expected to be very small). The performances of MSS models using or not geodetic measurements from CryoSat-2 and Jason-1 GM are analysed. We focus our analysis in a favourable area with low ocean variability and large MSS gradients. The comparison of the SLA variability observed from Jason-2 and AltiKa for the wavelengths lower than 200 km clearly underlines an MSS error increase along AltiKa track when the satellite ground track is drifting away from it nominal track. This error is substantially smaller on recent models exploiting the dense geodetic coverage acquired since 2011.