Abstract's details

Sentinel-3 Land STM: Land Ice Thematic Products

Sebastian Bjerregaard Simonsen (Technical University of Denmark, Denmark)

CoAuthors

Louise Sanberg Sørensen (Technical University of Denmark, Denmark); Stine Rose (Technical University of Denmark, Denmark); Jérémie AUBLANC (Collecte Localisation Satellites, France); Ghita JETTOU (Collecte Localisation Satellites, France); Pierre FEMENIAS (ESA-ESRIN, Italy)

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:

Sentinel-3 is an Earth observation satellite series developed by the European Space Agency as part of the Copernicus Programme. It currently consists of 2 satellites: Sentinel-3A and Sentinel-3B, launched respectively on 16 February 2016 and 25 April 2018. Among the on-board instruments, the satellites carry a radar altimeter to provide operational topography measurements of the Earth’s surface. Over land ice, the main objective of the Sentinel-3 constellation is to provide accurate measurements of the polar ice sheets topography, to support ice sheet mass balance studies. Compared to previous missions embarking on conventional pulse limited altimeters, Sentinel-3 is measuring the surface topography with an enhanced spatial resolution, thanks to the on-board SAR Radar ALtimeter (SRAL), exploiting the delay-Doppler capabilities.
To further improve the performances of the Sentinel-3 Altimetry LAND products, ESA and the Sentinel-3 LAND Mission Performance Cluster (MPC) recently developed specialized delay-Doppler and Level-2 processing chains over (1) Inland Waters, (2) Sea-Ice, and (3) Land Ice areas. The objective is to provide new dedicated “thematic products” to the users for the three surfaces mentioned. Over land ice delay-Doppler processing with an extended window has been implemented to enhance the coverage of the ice sheet margins. The operational production of these thematic products will start by Fall 2022.
To ensure the mission's requirements are met, the Sentinel-3 MPC is also in charge of the qualification and the monitoring of the instrument, and core product performances. In this poster, the Land Ice ESLs (Expert Support Laboratories) of the MPC presents a first performance assessment of the Land Ice thematic products. The analyses include comparisons to Operation IceBridge airborne data and other sensors such as ICESat-2 and CryoSat-2. The quality step-up provided by the Land Ice thematic products, and highlighted in this poster, is a first and major milestone. From now on, the Sentinel-3 Land Thematic Products will independently evolve to better meet and fulfil the requirements of the Land Ice community. A Full Mission Reprocessing (FMR) is planned early for 2023, to produce fully homogeneous S3A and S3B Land Ice thematic datasets.
 

Poster show times:

Room Start Date End Date
Mezzanine Tue, Nov 01 2022,17:15 Tue, Nov 01 2022,18:15
Mezzanine Thu, Nov 03 2022,14:00 Thu, Nov 03 2022,15:45
Sebastian Bjerregaard Simonsen
Technical University of Denmark
Denmark
ssim@space.dtu.dk