Abstract's details

Impact of the Sentinel-3A SRAL PTR Evolution on the L2 Marine Measurements

Salvatore Dinardo (He Space, Italy)

CoAuthors

Michele Scagliola (ARESYS, Italy); Lisa Rechia (ARESYS, Italy)

Event: 2019 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting

Session: Instrument Processing: Measurement and Retracking

Presentation type: Type Poster

Contribution: not provided

Abstract:

The Sentinel-3A SRAL Point Target Response (PTR) Half-Power Width is drifting over the time. This drift has been estimated to be around -0.5 mm per year and is significant, being around five times the PTR width drift as measured for Envisat Altimeter and CryoSat-2 Altimeter.
In this work, we analyse the impact of this Sentinel-3A SRAL PTR evolution on the stability of the L2 marine geophysical measurement (sea level and wave height) in SAR mode over the full period of the mission.
A Sentinel-3A STM (surface Topography Mission) pole to pole L1b pass was selected and the waveforms in this pass have been retracked with a numerical SAR retracker embedding the evolving real Sentinel3-A SRAL PTR as measured during the CAL1 calibration during the mission time. By comparison of the significant wave height obtained by means of the numerical retracker, using the CAL1 PTR, and the the significant wave height from L2 marine measurements, an impact assessment of the PTR stability will be performed.
The impact in term of stability of the SRAL PTR evolution on the L2 marine measurements will be reported and discussed. The dependency of the impact with the sea state conditions will be investigated.

 

Poster show times:

Room Start Date End Date
The Gallery Tue, Oct 22 2019,16:15 Tue, Oct 22 2019,18:00
The Gallery Thu, Oct 24 2019,14:00 Thu, Oct 24 2019,15:45
Salvatore Dinardo
He Space
Italy
salvatore.dinardo@eumetsat.int