CRYOSAT PROCESSING PROTOTYPE, LRM PROCESSING ON CNES SIDE AND A COMPARISON TO DUACS SLA

摘要

In the frame of Sentinel3 project, CNES is involved inrnthe overall altimetric topography payload productrnquality. Like CryoSat, Sentinel3 embarks a Dopplerrnaltimeter. While there is a long experience ofrnconventional pulse limited altimeters processing, calledrnLRM (Low Resolution Mode) in this paper, SAR nadirrnlooking data are new and will need in depth validation.rnThanks to CryoSat project, 2 long acquisitions of SARrndata were performed early June 2010 over the Indianrnocean. There is also routine acquisition of SAR datarnover dedicated ocean areas (like the Algulhas current).rnThose SAR data will be very useful to assess thernquality of the SAR processing methods currently underrndevelopment.rnA CryoSat Processing Prototype (C2P) has beenrndeveloped on CNES side to prepare the CNES SARrnocean retracking study. In order to validate ourrnprototype, the analysis has been conducted on the LRMrndata. C2P uses directly the LRM telemetry files andrnperform the whole processing steps required to derivernsea surface information. It is so independent from thernoperational ground processing products. The C2P hasrnbeen validated thanks to the use of Jason-2 data and thernC2P CryoSat products has been compared withrnDUACS SLA estimates.