DUAL-FREQUENCY ALTIMETER OF ENVISAT ABOVE THE ANTARCTICA ICE SHEET

• Main Authors: Frédérique Rémy, Benoît Legrésy
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Greenland; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.380.5433; http://earth.esa.int/workshops/salzburg04/papers_posters/4B5_remy_94.pdf

The dual-frequency altimeter of Topex allows since few years the observations of earth from 62°N to 62°S both in Ku and in C band. Previous works has been already performed above continental areas by [1, 2, 3, 4] and above the southern part of the Greenland ice sheet [5, 6]. These works show the great interest of a dual-frequency above both for the retrieval of some geophysical parameters and for a better understanding of the physics of the measure. The RA2 altimeter on board ENVISAT allows for the first time such observations over the polar regions, up to 82°N and 82°S. The low frequency of the RA2 is lower than the one of Topex (S band, 3.6 GHz) also allowing a complementary