1. Extending the Arctic sea ice freeboard and sea level record with the Sentinel-3 radar altimeters
- Author
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Alan Muir, Julienne Stroeve, Thomas W. K. Armitage, Isobel Lawrence, Michel Tsamados, Andrew Shepherd, Andy Ridout, Salvatore Dinardo, and R. Tilling
- Subjects
Atmospheric Science ,geography ,geography.geographical_feature_category ,010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences ,Meteorology ,Freeboard ,Anomaly (natural sciences) ,Aerospace Engineering ,Astronomy and Astrophysics ,01 natural sciences ,law.invention ,Geophysics ,Arctic ,Space and Planetary Science ,law ,0103 physical sciences ,Sea ice ,General Earth and Planetary Sciences ,Satellite ,Altimeter ,Radar ,010303 astronomy & astrophysics ,Geology ,Sea level ,0105 earth and related environmental sciences - Abstract
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.
- Published
- 2021