Abstract's details

Sentinel-3 and Jason-3 NRT Wind and Wave Products: Assessment and Assimilation

Saleh Abdalla (ECMWF, United Kingdom)

Event: 2018 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting

Session: Application development for Operations

Presentation type: Oral

Radar altimeter wind and wave products are very important products for ocean wave and atmospheric models. They are used for model validation and for data assimilation (wave height only). The products need validation before they can be used for practical applications. Surface wind speed and significant wave height observed by Sentinel-3A (S3A) radar altimeter (SRAL) and Jason-3 in near real time (NRT) have been monitored and validated against the corresponding parameters from the ECMWF Integrated Forecast System (IFS), in-situ buoy and platform instruments and other satellites (specifically: Jason-2, Cryosat-2 and SARAL/AltiKa) including cross-comparison since the availability of such data. Sentinel-3B (S3B) has already joined them and its data will be added whenever become available. S3A (as well as S3B in the future) NRT Level 2 STM Marine Product (SR_2_WAT) is routinely obtained from EUMETSAT Copernicus Online Data Access (CODA) are used for this purpose.
Sentinel-3B will be launched on the same orbit of S3A and both will orbit the Earth in tandem during the first few months for cross-calibration. After few cycles, S3B will be moved to its permanent orbit that complements the coverage of S3A. The altimeter wind and wave data from S3B will go through the same procedures of S3A.
Since wave data from both Sentinel-3 and Jason-3 missions are will be used in operational assimilation, the NRT availability and timeliness of their products are of crucial importance. Therefore, the availability and timeliness of wind and wave products will be assessed.
Numerical experiments were conducted to assess the impact of assimilating SWH from S3A and Jason-3 NRT products in addition to those from Jason-2, CryoSat-2 and SARAL/AltiKa in the ECMWF third generation wave model ECWAM which is an integrated part of IFS. The results of those experiments will be presented and discussed. Operational assimilation of wave height data from both S3A and Jason-3 in the ECMWF systems is expected to take place in June 2018.

Contribution: APOP_01_Abdalla.pdf (pdf, 4299 ko)

Corresponding author:

Saleh Abdalla

ECMWF

United Kingdom

Saleh.Abdalla@ecmwf.int

Back to the list of abstract