CoAuthors

Neil White (CSIRO, Australia); John Church (CSIRO, Australia); Jack Beardsley (University of Tasmania, Australia); Benoit Legresy (CSIRO, Australia); Matt King (University of Tasmania, Australia)

The primary southern hemisphere validation site located in Bass Strait (40° 39'S, 145° 36' E) enables cycle-by-cycle estimation of absolute bias for the TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and OSTM/Jason-2 missions. With ongoing support from the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), a secondary in situ facility located on the same descending pass (pass 088) has been operating over recent years. The second site, Storm Bay, is located approximately 350 km along track, but subject to (on average) twice the significant wave height as Bass Strait, allowing investigation of sea state effects on absolute bias.

Here we present updated results from our single-pass / multi-site approach. We present a brief overview of our approach that continues to utilise repeat deployments of oceanographic moorings (including high accuracy pressure gauges and associated instrumentation) combined with episodic GPS buoy deployments, and utilisation of coastal tide gauge data and land based GPS reference stations. We present the first detailed analysis of differences in absolute bias between the Bass Strait and Storm Bay sites.