IAHS2022-519
https://doi.org/10.5194/iahs2022-519
IAHS-AISH Scientific Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

High-Resolution (SAR) Altimetry Processing on Demand for Cryosat-2 and Sentinel-3 at ESA’s Altimetry Virtual Lab

Jérôme Benveniste1, Salvatore Dinardo2, Christopher Buchhaupt3, Michele Scagliola4, Marcello Passaro5, Luciana Fenoglio-Marc6, Giovanni Sabatino7, Marco Restano8, Américo Ambrózio9, Beniamino Abis7, and Carla Orrù7
Jérôme Benveniste et al.
  • 1European Space Agency, Earth Observation Science, Applications and Climate Department, Frascati, Italy (jerome.benveniste@esa.int)
  • 2Collecte Localisation Satellites, Toulouse, France
  • 3University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
  • 4Aresys, Via Privata Flumendosa 16, 20132 Milano, Italy
  • 5Technische Universität München, Germany
  • 6University of Bonn, Germany
  • 7Progressive Systems, Frascati, Italy
  • 8SERCO/ESRIN, Frascati, Italy
  • 9DEIMOS/ESRIN, Frascati, Italy

The scope of this presentation is to provide an update on the ESA radar altimetry services portfolio for the exploitation of CryoSat-2 (CS-2) and Sentinel-3 (S-3) data from L1A (FBR) data products up to SAR/SARin L2 geophysical data products. At present, the following on-line & on-demand services compose the portfolio:

  • The ESA-ESRIN SARvatore (SAR Versatile Altimetric TOolkit for Research & Exploitation) for CS-2 and S-3 services. These processor prototypes allow the users to customize the processing at L1b & L2 by setting a list of configurable options, including those not available in the operational processing chains (e.g. SAMOSA+ and ALES+ SAR retrackers).
  • The TUDaBo SAR-RDSAR (TU Darmstadt – U Bonn SAR-Reduced SAR) for CS-2 and S-3 service. It allows users to generate reduced SAR, unfocused SAR & LRMC data. Several configurable L1b & L2 processing options and retrackers (BMLE3, SINC2, TALES, SINCS, SINCS OV) are available.
  • The TU München ALES+ SAR for CS-2 and S-3 service. It allows users to process official L1b data and produces L2 products by applying the empirical ALES+ SAR subwaveform retracker, including a dedicated SSB solution.
  • The Aresys FF-SAR (Fully-Focused SAR) for CS-2 service. Currently under development, it will provide the capability to produce L1b products with several configurable options and with the possibility of appending the ALES+ FFSAR output to the L1b products.

In the future, these services will be extended and the following new services will be made available: the Aresys FF-SAR services for S-3 & Sentinel-6, the CLS SMAP S-3 FF-SAR processor (s-3--smap) and the ESA-ESTEC/isardSAT L1 Sentinel-6 Ground Prototype Processor.                                                     

All output data products are generated in standard netCDF format, and are therefore also compatible with the multi-mission “Broadview Radar Altimetry Toolbox” (BRAT, http://www.altimetry.info).

The SARvatore Services are being migrated from the ESA G-POD (https://gpod.eo.esa.int/) to the Altimetry Virtual Lab, a community space for simplified services access and knowledge-sharing. It will be hosted on EarthConsole (https://earthconsole.eu), a powerful EO data processing platform now also on the ESA Network of Resources. This enables SARvatore Services to remain open for worldwide scientific applications (info at altimetry.info@esa.int).

How to cite: Benveniste, J., Dinardo, S., Buchhaupt, C., Scagliola, M., Passaro, M., Fenoglio-Marc, L., Sabatino, G., Restano, M., Ambrózio, A., Abis, B., and Orrù, C.: High-Resolution (SAR) Altimetry Processing on Demand for Cryosat-2 and Sentinel-3 at ESA’s Altimetry Virtual Lab, IAHS-AISH Scientific Assembly 2022, Montpellier, France, 29 May–3 Jun 2022, IAHS2022-519, https://doi.org/10.5194/iahs2022-519, 2022.