Satellite altimetry provides the possibility to observe key parts of the hydrosphere, namely the ocean, ice, and continental surface water from space. Since the launch of Topex/Poseidon in 1992 the applications of altimetry have expanded from the open oceans to coastal zones, inland water, land and sea ice. Today, seven missions are in orbit, providing dense and near-global observations of surface elevation and several other parameters. Satellite altimetry has become an integral part of the global observation of the Earth‘s system and changes therein.

In recent years, new satellite altimetry missions have been launched carrying new instruments and operating in new orbits; the CryoSat-2/Sentinel-3 missions equipped with a Delay/Doppler altimeter, the Saral AltiKa mission carrying the first Ka band altimeter, and the recently launched photon counting laser altimeter on-board NASAs ICESat-2.

Fully exploiting this unprecedented availability of observables will enable new applications and results but also require novel and adapted methods of data analysis.
Across the different applications for satellite altimetry, the data analysis and underlying methods are similar and a knowledge exchange between the disciplines will be fruitful.
In this multidisciplinary altimetry session, we therefore invite contributions which discuss new methodology and applications for satellite altimetry in the fields of geodesy, hydrology, cryosphere, oceanography, and climatology.
Topics of such studies could for example be (but not limited to): creation of robust and consistent time series across sensors, validation experiments, combination of radar and laser altimetry e. g. for remote sensing of snow, classification of waveforms, application of data in a geodetic orbit, retracking, or combination with other remote sensing data sets.