The Role of Altimetry in Coastal Observing Systems

Abstract

The last few years have witnessed the foundation and development of a new discipline, coastal altimetry, and the coalescence of an active community of researchers who are now enthusiastically developing the topic. In the present community white paper, we summarize the technical challenges that satellite altimetry faces in the coastal zone, and the research that is currently being carried out to overcome those challenges. We introduce the new coastal altimetry data that are becoming available, and describe how we can calibrate/validate those data. Then we show several of the possible applications of coastal altimetry and conclude by looking at the future of the discipline, and at how we can build capacity in coastal altimetry.

Storm Surge

“…The possibilities of extending the capabilities of current and future altimeters as close as possible to the coast, with the ultimate aim to integrate the altimeterderived measurements of sea level, wind speed and significant wave height into coastal ocean observing systems are described by [18]. They note that "the quintessential, most immediate application of coastal altimetry is to look at the coastal sea level, including short term sea level variations (leading to monitoring of surges)".…”

Synthesis and Assimilation Systems - Essential Adjuncts to the Global Ocean Observing System

“…Many satellite observations also have issues near shore. The technical challenges for coastal altimetry are presented in [56], along with a description of efforts that are underway to improve products in the coastal zone and to develop calibration/validation systems for new data products. Water vapour and tidal corrections are particularly crucial, and their precision needs to be increased in the coastal zone.…”

“…Further work is needed to improve satellite technology and capability in this environment. CryoSat-2 (to be launched early 2010), the Sentinel-3 satellites and the Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission [57], with ability to resolve high-resolution features, hold a lot of promise for coastal oceanography and coastal ocean data assimilation [56].…”

Geodetic Observations of the Ocean Surface Topography, Geoid, Currents, and Changes in Ocean Mass and Volume

“…Such instrumentation is also required for the more complete exploitation of altimetry in coastal areas [11], and global surface water hydrology [1]. The observations of total land (including ice-sheets, mountain glaciers and ice caps) water storage change, or the absolute water storage exchange between the land/ice surface and the ocean, are critically important to quantify the freshwater budget and its effect on general ocean circulation and global sea level change [7], [30] and [36].…”

“…, Jens Schröter (3) , Victor Zlotnicki (4) , Peter Bender (5) , Alexander Braun (6) , Anny Cazenave (7) , Don Chamber (8) , Jianbin Duan (1) , William Emery (9) , Georgia Fotopoulos (6) , Viktor Gouretski (10) , Richard Gross (4) , Thomas Gruber (11) , Junyi Guo (1) , Guoqi Han (12) , Chris Hughes (13) , Masayoshi Ishii (14) , Steven Jayne (15) , Johnny Johannessen (16) , Per Knudsen (17) , Chung-Yen Kuo (18) , Eric Leuliette (19) , Sydney Levitus (20) , Nikolai Maximenko (21) , Laury Miller (19) , James Morison (22) , Harunur Rashid (23) , John Ries (24) , Markus Rothache (25) , Reiner Rummel (11) , Kazuo Shibuya (26) , Michael Sideris (27) , Y. Tony Song (4) , Detlef Stammer (28) , Maik Thomas (29) , Josh Willis (4) , Philip Woodworth ( The tools of geodesy have the potential to transform the Ocean Observing System. Geodetic observations are unique in the way that these methods produce accurate, quantitative, and integrated observations of gravity, ocean circulation, sea surface height, ocean bottom pressure, and mass exchanges among the ocean, cryosphere, and land.…”