Precise Near-Real-Time Sea Surface Height Measurements from the Jason-1 and Jason-2/OSTM Missions

Abstract

Precise measurements of sea surface height from the Jason-1 and Jason-2/Ocean Surface Topography Mission satellite altimeter missions are being generated within seven and four hours, respectively, of real time by applying high accuracy orbit altitudes to their near-real-time altimetry products. The near-real-time orbit altitudes have respective accuracies of <2 and <1 cm (RMS), and the corresponding sea surface height measurements have accuracies of <4.0 and <3.5 cm, respectively. These near-real-time orbit solutions are computed using GPS-based precise orbit determination for Jason-2, and Jason-1/Jason-2 sea surface height crossover differences for Jason-1.

Keywords:

• Altimetry
• sea surface height
• precise orbit determination
• near-real-time

Acknowledgements

The work described in this paper was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We thank the reviewers for their valuable comments on this paper.

Government sponsorship acknowledged.