RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 10, ES1002, doi:10.2205/2007ES000262, 2008

Approach and Methodology

[21]  The project will adopt an approach starting from the indications of the users, which entails the following points:

[22]  1) identifying and understanding the user needs in terms of problems (e.g., coastal protection from increasing sea level and/or changing wave climate), procedures (e.g., calibrate models), products (e.g., sea level; wave height) and specifications (e.g., accuracy level), on the basis of what is currently available (e.g., tide gauges; wave sensors), and highlighting how altimetry can help (e.g., better coverage);

[23]  2) evaluating what can be done with the "official'' products and what are the major issues, e.g., deficiencies in existing data streams and their handling, quality controls, error components;

[24]  3) determining what data processing steps need to be improved for adding value, e.g., use of available retracked products, use of 10/20 Hz data, correction updates, new processing functions;

[25]  4) addressing the required validation exercises;

[26]  5) going from the sensor measurement to a product, e.g., quality-controlled coastal sea level anomalies and significant wave height;

[27]  6) raising the awareness of altimetry data amongst the user community via a dissemination package;

[28]  7) distributing the products efficiently via a Grid-compliant portal which allows fully functional and custom extraction of optimized data to the users.

[29]  In methodological terms, the process will include:

[30]  1) acquiring all available satellite data (1 Hz streams to start with, possibly higher rate streams later) over the regions of interest;

[31]  2) compiling local data sets, including tide gauges, metocean observations and model output;

[32]  3) characterizing the coastal region by taking into account the non-uniform conditions, e.g., bathymetry, land morphology, tides, wind;

[33]  4) analyzing initial data capabilities, e.g., anomalies, critical factors;

[34]  5) building processing chain, e.g., adjust corrections, add new or improved local corrective terms;

[35]  6) defining data match-up exercises, e.g., discrepancies, confidence levels;

[36]  7) building a server for the improved products.

[37]  This methodology has two main benefits: a) it will make coastal altimetry data of higher quality than the currently available products, and b) it will make the data immediately available to modellers and data integrators.


RJES

Citation: Lebedev, S., A. Sirota, D. Medvedev, S. Khlebnikova, S. Vignudelli, H. M. Snaith, P.  Cipollini, F. Venuti, F. Lyard, J. Bouffard, J. F. Cretaux, F. Birol, L. Roblou, A.  Kostianoy, A. Ginzburg, N. Sheremet, E. Kuzmina, R. Mamedov, K. Ismatova, A.  Alyev, and B. Mustafayev (2008), Exploiting satellite altimetry in coastal ocean through the ALTICORE project, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 10, ES1002, doi:10.2205/2007ES000262.

Copyright 2008 by the Russian Journal of Earth Sciences

Powered by TeXWeb (Win32, v.2.0).