Assimilation of satellite altimetry referenced to the new GRACE geoid estimate

• Main Authors: Birol, Florence, Brankart, Jean-Michel, Lemoine, J.M., Brasseur, Pierre, Verron, Jacques
• Other Authors: Laboratoire des Écoulements Géophysiques et Industriels Grenoble (LEGI), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Groupement de Recherche en Géodésie Spatiale (GRGS), Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2005
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.GP]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00212118; https://hal.science/hal-00212118/document; https://hal.science/hal-00212118/file/Assimilation_of_satellite.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GL02329

Currently, two satellite gravimetric missions (CHAMP, GRACE) are dedicated to the improvement of our knowledge of the geoid, and one (GOCE) is planned in the near future. This will allow the absolute altimeter ocean height measurements to be exploited, instead of only sea level variations. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of the GRACE mission on ocean data assimilation. The new approach is to directly assimilate the full altimetric signal relative to the first release of a GRACE geoid. The response of an eddy‐permitting ocean model of the North Atlantic to the assimilation of this altimetric signal is analysed. The results are compared to that obtained using the usual approach, i.e., the assimilation of the dynamic topography derived from the addition of altimetric sea level anomalies and a mean dynamic topography estimate. Even if the GRACE mission resolution (333 km) is not yet compatible with oceanographic studies at mid latitude, we show that the geoid estimate can already be used with success in basin scale altimetric data assimilation problems.