Coastal Altimetry, from Data Processing to Industrial Applications: Some Illustrations
Cancet, Mathilde1; Jeansou, Eric1; Lamouroux, Julien1; Crespon, François1; Birol, Florence2; Lyard, Florent3; Morrow, Rosemary2; Bronner, Emilie4; Benveniste, Jérôme5
1NOVELTIS, FRANCE; 2LEGOS/CTOH, FRANCE; 3LEGOS, FRANCE; 4CNES, FRANCE; 5ESA/ESRIN, ITALY

For more than 20 years, the satellite altimetry missions have been providing sea surface height information all over the global ocean with a precision at the centimeter level in the open ocean. In the coastal zones, the quality of the measurements is degraded because of the land proximity, which affects the signals of the radar altimeter and the contingent onboard microwave radiometer.

The knowledge of the coastal ocean dynamics is of prime importance due to the large populations that live on the shores and the social and economic stakes it represents (environment, fisheries, sea transport, marine energy resources, etc...). During the last ten years, many efforts were done by different groups to develop corrections and processing strategies dedicated to the coastal altimetry observations. Ever since, the coastal altimetry data has proved to be of high value in many scientific and industrial applications.

For several years, NOVELTIS has been involved in the development of coastal altimetry corrections, in particular for the ionosphere path delay and the ocean tide. The SPECTRE high resolution ionosphere mapping service has been operational since 2004 and will be used in the CryoSat+ for Ocean (CP4O) ESA project. The COMAPI regional tidal atlases were computed in 2010 and benefited from coastal altimetry data assimilation, as well as the recent FES2012 global atlas (CNES projects). NOVELTIS also provides assessment of the available coastal products. We recently developed strategies to evaluate the added-value of coastal altimetry products (PISTACH, X-TRACK), in terms of sea surface heights and geostrophic currents, including comparisons with in situ data. In addition, we promote coastal altimetry through the development of new products for coastal engineering or industrial applications, such as tidal energy resource assessment. This presentation will give an overview of some of our recent coastal altimetry related projects, concerning products improvement and assessment, and the development of new value-added products.