Altimeter Processing Tools for Analyzing Mesoscale Ocean Features
Abstract
The U.S. Navy altimeter satellite GEOSAT was designed to provide a highly improved marine geoid. In October 1986, it was moved into a 17-day exact repeat orbit. The new orbital parameters corresponded to the 1978 Seasat mission and was corrected periodically to provide a groundtrack repeatability to within 1 km. The primary purpose of this project is to perform a 'repeat' or 'collinear' track analysis. This analysis requires sorting the data into collinear tracks, correcting the sea surface heights for various measurement errors and regridding the along-track data to a common grid. To use this data, a software package was developed at the WHOI and the Univ of Hawaii to facilitate the extraction of useful information from the NODC distributed GEOSAT data tapes. This software package was written with portability and modularity in mind. It should be possible to use this package with little or no modifications on data from future altimeters. The code was written in C and tested on Sun workstations and is oriented toward UNIX operating systems. However, since standard code was used, the programs should port easily to other computer systems. The modularity of the code should enable users to create addition programs. Additional programs designed to handle collocated water vapor corrections are also included for comparison.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1990
- Accession Number
- ADA231904
Entities
People
- M. K. Baker
- Michael J. Caruso
- Pierre J. Flament
- Ziv Sirkes
Organizations
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution