Abstract's details
Performance of the altimetry constellation: contribution of HY2B mission
CoAuthors
Event: 2019 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting
Session: Regional and Global CAL/VAL for Assembling a Climate Data Record
Presentation type: Type Oral
Contribution: not provided
Abstract:
We currently have the largest ever flying constellation for sea level observation with Jason-2, Cryosat-2, HY-2A, AltiKa, Jason-3, Sentinel-3A, Sentinel-3B and HY2B missions. While some of the oldest satellites suffer from problems in delivering observations, the constellation has renewed with 4 satellites launched between 2016 and 2018 and providing data records of excellent quality. Indeed, AltiKa satellite is facing platform mispointing problems since early 2019 and Jason-2 was unavailable during the same period which weakened the constellation observation capability.
This paper aims at giving an overview of the quality of the current altimetry constellation, with a focus on the latest newcomer HY2B mission, launched in October 2018. We address the performance of HY2B payload for sea level for mesoscale observation, based on a few months data set. The analysis of the classical metrics used to quantify altimetry performance (data availability, performance of along track sea level, performances at crossovers and sea level short scale content) shows that this mission provides very good data quality. We also show how it compares with different altimetry missions. The comparison with Jason-3 mission is of specific interest since these two altimeters are classical Ku-band LRM altimeters.
This paper aims at giving an overview of the quality of the current altimetry constellation, with a focus on the latest newcomer HY2B mission, launched in October 2018. We address the performance of HY2B payload for sea level for mesoscale observation, based on a few months data set. The analysis of the classical metrics used to quantify altimetry performance (data availability, performance of along track sea level, performances at crossovers and sea level short scale content) shows that this mission provides very good data quality. We also show how it compares with different altimetry missions. The comparison with Jason-3 mission is of specific interest since these two altimeters are classical Ku-band LRM altimeters.