Sea surface retracking and classification of CryoSat-2 altimetry observations in the Arctic Ocean

Abstract:

In this study we present the retracking and classification methods for CryoSat-2 SAR waveforms, developed for the determination of sea surface heights in the Arctic Ocean. The obtained sea surface heights (SSH) are used to decrease the gap in satellite observations from 82 degrees North to 88 degrees North in the DTU15 mean sea surface (MSS) and mean dynamic topography (MDT).
Radar altimetry satellites has observed the sea surface for more than 25 years and thereby obtain data to determine accurate MSSs and estimate sea level trends related to climate changes. In combination with the improvements of global geoids it has furthermore provided an opportunity to improve the MDT related to ocean currents.
After the launch of CryoSat-2 in 2010 the coverage was increased dramatically while the introduction of the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and SAR interferometry (SARin) mode increased the amount of useful echoes in the Arctic Ocean. The new types of radar observation modes have been investigated and methods to retrack and classify the waveforms have been implemented in LARS the advanced retracking system (LARS). Finally the SSH observations obtained from CryoSat-2 with LARS is merged with previous satellite radar altimetry data to derive the DTU15 MSS.