Impact of two high resolution altimetry mission concepts for ocean forecasting

Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) with the Mercator Ocean/Copernicus Marine global 1/12° data assimilation system has been carried out to compare and quantify the expected performance of two high resolution altimetry mission concepts envisioned for the long-term evolution (post-2032) of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 topography mission. The two mission concepts are a constellation of two wide-swath altimeters and a constellation of 12 nadir altimeters. These two configurations greatly improve ocean forecasting and monitoring capabilities. Compared to a constellation of three nadir altimeters (the present configuration), analysis and forecast errors are reduced by a factor of 2. Our results also show that a constellation of two wide-swath altimeters has better performance than a constellation of 12 nadirs. Compared to a constellation of 12 nadirs, the error of the Sea Surface Height (SSH) forecast of a two wide swath constellation will be reduced by 14 % overall. Improvements are also observed when analysing surface currents and Lagrangian diagnostics. A constellation of two wide-swath altimeters thus seems to be a very promising concept for the long-term evolution of the Sentinel-3 topography mission.

Keyword(s)

data assimilation, ocean forecasting, surface water ocean topography (SWOT) mission, satellite altimetry, observing system simulation experiment

Full Text

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Preprint - 10.5194/egusphere-2024-420
191 Mo
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1429 Mo
How to cite
Benkiran Mounir, Le Traon Pierre-Yves, Rémy Elisabeth, Drillet Yann (2024). Impact of two high resolution altimetry mission concepts for ocean forecasting. Frontiers In Marine Science. 11. 1465065 (14p.). https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2024.1465065, https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00929/104045/

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