Extending the Arctic Sea Ice Freeboard and Sea Level Record with the Sentinel-3 Radar Altimeters
In February 2016 and April 2018 the European Space Agency launched the Sentinel-3A and 3B satellites respectively, as part of the European Commission’s multi-satellite Copernicus Programme. Here we process Sentinel-3A waveform data to estimate Arctic sea level anomaly and radar freeboard from Novemb...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Elsevier BV
2019
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10084072/1/ILawrence_ASR_revised_v2.pdf https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10084072/ |
Summary: | In February 2016 and April 2018 the European Space Agency launched the Sentinel-3A and 3B satellites respectively, as part of the European Commission’s multi-satellite Copernicus Programme. Here we process Sentinel-3A waveform data to estimate Arctic sea level anomaly and radar freeboard from November 2017 to April 2018. We compare our results to those from the CryoSat-2 satellite, and find an intermission bias on sea-level anomaly of 2 cm. We also find a mean radar freeboard difference of 1 cm, which we attribute to the use of empirical retrackers to retrieve lead and floe elevations. Ahead of Sentinel-3B waveform data being made available, we use orbit files to estimate the improvement in sampling resolution afforded by the addition of Sentinel-3A and 3B data to the CryoSat-2 dataset. By combining data from the three satellites, grid resolution or time-sampling can be almost tripled compared with using CryoSat-2 data alone. |
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