Extending the Arctic sea ice freeboard and sea level record with the Sentinel-3 radar altimeters. Issue 2 (15th July 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lawrence, Isobel R.; Armitage, Thomas W.K.; Tsamados, Michel C.; Stroeve, Julienne C.; Dinardo, Salvatore; Ridout, Andy L.; Muir, Alan; Tilling, Rachel L.; Shepherd, Andrew
• Is Part Of: Advances in space research. Volume 68:Issue 2(2021)
• Page Start: 711
• Page End: 723
• Publication Date: 2021-07-15
• Subjects: Sea ice -- Radar altimetry -- CryoSat-2 -- Sentinel-3 -- Sea-level anomaly -- Radar freeboard; Space sciences -- Periodicals; Astronautics -- Periodicals; Geophysics -- Periodicals; 500.505
• DOI: 10.1016/j.asr.2019.10.011
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0273-1177

Abstract

Abstract: In February 2016 and April 2018 the European Space Agency launched the Sentinel-3A and 3B satellites respectively, as part of the European Commission's multi-satellite Copernicus Programme. Here we process Sentinel-3A waveform data to estimate Arctic sea level anomaly and radar freeboard from November 2017 to April 2018. We compare our results to those from the CryoSat-2 satellite, and find an intermission bias on sea-level anomaly of 2 cm. We also find a mean radar freeboard difference of 1 cm, which we attribute to the use of empirical retrackers to retrieve lead and floe elevations. Ahead of Sentinel-3B waveform data being made available, we use orbit files to estimate the improvement in sampling resolution afforded by the addition of Sentinel-3A and 3B data to the CryoSat-2 dataset. By combining data from the three satellites, grid resolution or time-sampling can be almost tripled compared with using CryoSat-2 data alone.