High-Resolution (SAR) Altimetry Processing on Demand for Cryosat-2 and Sentinel-3 at ESA’s Altimetry Virtual Lab

The scope of this presentation is to provide an update on the ESA radar altimetry services portfolio for the exploitation of CryoSat-2 (CS-2) and Sentinel-3 (S-3) data from L1A (FBR) data products up to SAR/SARin L2 geophysical data products. At present, the following on-line & on-demand services compose the portfolio:The ESA-ESRIN SARvatore (SAR Versatile Altimetric TOolkit for Research & Exploitation) for CS-2 and S-3 services. These processor prototypes allow the users to customize the processing at L1b & L2 by setting a list of configurable options, including those not available in the operational processing chains (e.g. SAMOSA+ and ALES+ SAR retrackers). The TUDaBo SAR-RDSAR (TU Darmstadt – U Bonn SAR-Reduced SAR) for CS-2 and S-3 service. It allows users to generate reduced SAR, unfocused SAR & LRMC data. Several configurable L1b & L2 processing options and retrackers (BMLE3, SINC2, TALES, SINCS, SINCS OV) are available. The TU München ALES+ SAR for CS-2 and S-3 service. It allows users to process official L1b data and produces L2 products by applying the empirical ALES+ SAR subwaveform retracker, including a dedicated SSB solution. The Aresys FF-SAR (Fully-Focused SAR) for CS-2 service. Currently under development, it will provide the capability to produce L1b products with several configurable options and with the possibility of appending the ALES+ FFSAR output to the L1b products. In the future, these services will be extended and the following new services will be made available: the Aresys FF-SAR services for S-3 & Sentinel-6, the CLS SMAP S-3 FF-SAR processor (s-3--smap) and the ESA-ESTEC/isardSAT L1 Sentinel-6 Ground Prototype Processor. All output data products are generated in standard netCDF format, and are therefore also compatible with the multi-mission “Broadview Radar Altimetry Toolbox” (BRAT, http://www.altimetry.info).The SARvatore Services are being migrated from the ESA G-POD (https://gpod.eo.esa.int/) to the Altimetry Virtual Lab, a community space for simplified services access and knowledge-sharing. It will be hosted on EarthConsole (https://earthconsole.eu), a powerful EO data processing platform now also on the ESA Network of Resources. This enables SARvatore Services to remain open for worldwide scientific applications (info at altimetry.info@esa.int).