Obtaining sea surface height signals from ERS‐1 altimeter data

Abstract

Satellite‐borne radar altimeter gave ample opportunity for observing dynamical oceanographic features repeatedly over a larger scale. Before getting sea surface height signals altimeter data have to be corrected for a number of effects. Besides applying corrections given in the geophysical data records (GDR), the altimeter profiles must be processed and further corrections must be applied. This paper describes the various corrections, such as editing for rain cell effects, removal of orbit error and local geoid effects, etc., to be applied to the sea surface height observations. These corrections have to be applied in addition to those given in ERS‐1 altimeter operational products to get dynamic sea surface topographic signals. The signals in the sea surface heights obtained in this analysis are of the expected order.

Keywords:

• ERS‐1 altimeter
• collinear technique
• radial orbit error
• gravity anomaly
• quadratic trend
• rain cell effect
• geoid
• low‐pass filtering
• atmospheric corrections
• sea surface height