Reconstructing the 2003-2022 Sea Level Anomalies field in ice-covered regions of the Southern Ocean

Despite its pivotal role in the climate system, subpolar circulation in the Southern Ocean remains poorly observed, primarily owing to the physical limitations of conventional satellite altimetry in ice-covered regions. However, recent progress in processing methods now enables precise SLA (Sea Level Anomalies) estimations within sea-ice fractures and leads.

Thanks to these advances, previous studies were able to construct altimetry maps with a complete Southern Ocean coverage over the period 2011-2019. It allowed for the quantification of its full SLA seasonal cycle. Here, we introduce a novel SLA product that encompasses both open and ice-covered oceanic domains, and covers a larger temporal expanse amounting to two decades (2003-2022). Employing an optimal interpolation approach, multiple satellite missions, namely Envisat, Cryosat, SARAL/AltiKa, and Sentinel-3, are combined together, improving spatial resolution and increasing temporal range. A newly developed algorithm ensures the seamless continuity of observations, bridging the observational disconnect between open-ocean and leads data points.

The robustness of the derived SLA product is corroborated against in-situ data from moorings and bottom pressure recorders. The observed seasonal cycle aligns consistently with the existing literature. Overall, the temporal extent of this dataset provides, for the first time, the opportunity to investigate the interannual variability of the whole Southern Ocean circulation through observational data.