CoAuthors

Shailen Desai (NASA - Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States); Jean-Damien Desjonqueres (NASA - Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States); Bruce Haines (NASA - Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States)

The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich mission was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on November 21 2020. It is designed to provide high-precision measurements of ocean surface topography and to provide the scientific community with continuity of record of global sea level rise. The main payload is the Poseidon-4 nadir radar altimeter transmitting on both C and Ku-band in interleaved mode. This mode allows the altimeter to continuously operate in both SAR and LRM mode, allowing for higher resolution retrieval of ocean topography and backward combability with the long-term historical record. Sentinel-6 was launched into exactly the same ground track as its predecessor, Jason-3, just 30 seconds apart, providing an opportunity to cross-calibrate near-coincident measurements, in both space and time, from the two missions.

Here, we present results from the cross calibration of measurements from the Sentinel-6 and Jason-3 missions, with a primary focus on the NTC and GDR-F products, respectively. In particular, we focus on measurements from the altimeter (both Ku- and C-band) and radiometer, including range, significant wave height, backscatter, and wet troposphere delay. We also consider both LRM and SAR measurements from Sentinel-6.