1994•Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIERequires access
Combining ERS-1 and TOPEX-POSEIDON altimeter data to observe the ocean circulation
Pierre‐Yves Le Traon, Philippe Gaspar
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Abstract
The ERS-1 and Topex/Poseidon satellite altimeter are flying simultaneously. They measure the sea surface topography with different accuracies and their orbit characteristics are widely different. The joint use of the ERS-1 and Topex/Poseidon data is thus far from being trivial. Still, there is a lot to gain in combining these measurements to observe the ocean. It will be shown that, using Topex/Poseidon data, the ERS-1 orbit error can be reduced in such a way that the Topex/Poseidon and ERS-1 altimeter data become fully consistent and can be used together. The methodology used to correct for ERS-1 orbit error is first described and applied to all ERS-1 cycles (35-day repeat period) concurrent with Topex/Poseidon. Results are validated and the Sea Level Variability from ERS-1 and Topex/Poseidon is analyzed.