Abstract's details
A multi-surface performance assessment of the Sentinel-3A Surface Topography Mission Microwave Radiometer
CoAuthors
Event: 2017 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting
Session: Instrument Processing: Propagation, Wind Speed and Sea State Bias
Presentation type: Type Oral
Contribution: PDF file
Abstract:
The Sentinel-3A Surface Topography Mission has been launched on February 2016 and is now in its second year of operation. Its objectives are to serve primarily the marine operational users but also allow the monitoring of sea ice and land ice, as well as inland water surfaces.
A two-channels microwave radiometer (23.8 and 36.5 GHz) similar to the Envisat and ERS MWR sensors is combined to the altimeter in order to correct the altimeter range for the excess path delay (WTC for wet tropospheric correction) resulting from the presence of water vapor in the troposphere.
First, the performance of the brightness temperatures is assessed at global scale and with a focus on over non-oceanic surfaces, as land and ice.
Then, we will present the latest results of the S3A MWR assessment over ocean, demonstrating the very good performances of the 5-inputs WTC retrieval algorithm proposed in S3A products, based on the two brightness temperatures, the altimeter backscattering coefficient and additional inputs such as the sea surface temperature and atmospheric temperature lapse. S3A WTC quality is compared to other missions such as Jason-3 (NASA/CNES) and AltiKa (CNES/ISRO) using global metrics (differences of SSH variance at cross-overs) and to in-situ measurements (GPS and radiosondes).
A two-channels microwave radiometer (23.8 and 36.5 GHz) similar to the Envisat and ERS MWR sensors is combined to the altimeter in order to correct the altimeter range for the excess path delay (WTC for wet tropospheric correction) resulting from the presence of water vapor in the troposphere.
First, the performance of the brightness temperatures is assessed at global scale and with a focus on over non-oceanic surfaces, as land and ice.
Then, we will present the latest results of the S3A MWR assessment over ocean, demonstrating the very good performances of the 5-inputs WTC retrieval algorithm proposed in S3A products, based on the two brightness temperatures, the altimeter backscattering coefficient and additional inputs such as the sea surface temperature and atmospheric temperature lapse. S3A WTC quality is compared to other missions such as Jason-3 (NASA/CNES) and AltiKa (CNES/ISRO) using global metrics (differences of SSH variance at cross-overs) and to in-situ measurements (GPS and radiosondes).