Abstract's details
Sentinel-3 Topography mission Assessment through Reference Techniques (ESA St3TART project) – Focus on SCalSIT
CoAuthors
Event: 2022 Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting
Session: Regional and Global CAL/VAL for Assembling a Climate Data Record
Presentation type: Type Poster
Contribution: PDF file
Abstract:
The Copernicus Sentinel-3 Surface Topography Mission (STM), based on a constellation of two satellites, provides extremely valuable surface elevation information over inland waters, sea ice and land ice, thanks to its SAR altimeter which retrieves high-resolution along-track elevation measurements, and to its orbit that covers high-latitude polar regions. To ensure that these measurements can be used with confidence, and to maximize the return on investment of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 STM, adequate validation of the geophysical retrieval methods, processing algorithms and corrections must be performed, considering independent observations as Reference Measurements.
St3TART is an EU and ESA funded project led by NOVELTIS with a consortium of 17 European partners (CNES, DTU, NPI, vorteX.io, LEGOS, Hydro Matters, CLS, LOCEAN, IGE, SERTIT, GIS, CNR-IRPI, NPL, DT/INSU, IRD, M2C, SYRTE). It aims to generalize the concept of Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) for the Copernicus Sentinel-3 STM and to collect and distribute FRM data for the validation of the satellite mission over inland waters, sea ice and land ice. The provision of FRM will serve the validation activities of the ESA S3 Land Altimetry products, currently performed by the Sentinel-3 Mission Performance Centre, with the support of the Sentinel-3 Validation Team, for the sake of performance assessment and fitness-for-purpose of the Sentinel-3 STM Land core products. Those products cover inland waters, land-ice and sea-ice areas.
The objective of the St3TART project is not only to collect existing data or measure new observations during field campaigns, but to ensure that these observations meet the criteria of FRM standards and can be used in an operational way for the validation of the Sentinel-3 Land topography mission. Within the project, field campaigns are means to provide operational observations for the validation of the Sentinel-3 data.
One of the tasks of the project is the development of a Super Cal/Val Site Identifier Tool (SCalSIT). This tool will support the Cal/Val community and scientists in identifying potential in-situ Cal/Val sites over Inland Water Surfaces, by an appropriate cross-processing of the satellite orbits versus water mask ground data. The tool is configurable, to take into account a specific geographic area, a list of satellite orbits (theorical or user orbit products), a land water mask, the percentage of surface water occurrence, a buffer around the satellite tracks, and the minimum number of passes over a crossover. The output vector files can be in KML, CSV or GeoJSON formats.
It has been developed for the needs of the Sentinel-3 Surface Topography Mission constellation, but its generic implementation makes it compatible with other missions such as CryoSat-2, Sentinel-6 or SWOT.
The SCalSIT software is an open-source software, developed as a QGIS plugin, which makes it very easy to use and platform-independent, and it can also be used via a Command Line Interface.
The poster will present the main characteristics of the tool and an example of outputs.
St3TART is an EU and ESA funded project led by NOVELTIS with a consortium of 17 European partners (CNES, DTU, NPI, vorteX.io, LEGOS, Hydro Matters, CLS, LOCEAN, IGE, SERTIT, GIS, CNR-IRPI, NPL, DT/INSU, IRD, M2C, SYRTE). It aims to generalize the concept of Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) for the Copernicus Sentinel-3 STM and to collect and distribute FRM data for the validation of the satellite mission over inland waters, sea ice and land ice. The provision of FRM will serve the validation activities of the ESA S3 Land Altimetry products, currently performed by the Sentinel-3 Mission Performance Centre, with the support of the Sentinel-3 Validation Team, for the sake of performance assessment and fitness-for-purpose of the Sentinel-3 STM Land core products. Those products cover inland waters, land-ice and sea-ice areas.
The objective of the St3TART project is not only to collect existing data or measure new observations during field campaigns, but to ensure that these observations meet the criteria of FRM standards and can be used in an operational way for the validation of the Sentinel-3 Land topography mission. Within the project, field campaigns are means to provide operational observations for the validation of the Sentinel-3 data.
One of the tasks of the project is the development of a Super Cal/Val Site Identifier Tool (SCalSIT). This tool will support the Cal/Val community and scientists in identifying potential in-situ Cal/Val sites over Inland Water Surfaces, by an appropriate cross-processing of the satellite orbits versus water mask ground data. The tool is configurable, to take into account a specific geographic area, a list of satellite orbits (theorical or user orbit products), a land water mask, the percentage of surface water occurrence, a buffer around the satellite tracks, and the minimum number of passes over a crossover. The output vector files can be in KML, CSV or GeoJSON formats.
It has been developed for the needs of the Sentinel-3 Surface Topography Mission constellation, but its generic implementation makes it compatible with other missions such as CryoSat-2, Sentinel-6 or SWOT.
The SCalSIT software is an open-source software, developed as a QGIS plugin, which makes it very easy to use and platform-independent, and it can also be used via a Command Line Interface.
The poster will present the main characteristics of the tool and an example of outputs.