Major improvement of altimetry sea level estimations using pressure-derived corrections based on ERA-Interim atmospheric reanalysis

摘要

The new dynamic atmospheric correction (DAC) and dry tropospheric (DT) correction derived from the ERA-Interim meteorological reanalysis have been computed for the 1992-2013 altimeter period. Using these new corrections significantly improves sea level estimations for short temporal signals (< aEuro-2 months); the impact is stronger if considering old altimeter missions (ERS-1, ERS-2, and Topex/Poseidon), for which DAC_ERA (DAC derived from ERA-Interim meteorological reanalysis) allows reduction of the along-track altimeter sea surface height (SSH) error by more than 3aEuro-cm in the Southern Ocean and in some shallow water regions. The impact of DT_ERA (DT derived from ERA-Interim meteorological reanalysis) is also significant in the southern high latitudes for these missions.