Impact of Altimeter Data Processing on Sea Level Studies

This study addresses the impact of satellite altimetry data processing on sea level studies at regional scale, with emphasis on the influence of various geophysical corrections and satellite orbit on the structure of the derived interannual signal and sea level trend. The work focuses on the analysis of TOPEX data for a period of over twelve years, for three regions in the North Atlantic: Tropical (0o≤φ≤25o), Sub-Tropical (25o≤φ≤50o) and SubArctic (50o≤φ≤65o). For this analysis corrected sea level anomalies with respect to a mean sea surface model have been derived from the GDR-Ms provided by AVISO by applying various state-of-the-art models for the geophysical corrections. Results show that sea level trend determined from TOPEX altimetry is dependent on the adopted models for the major geophysical corrections. The main effects come from the sea state bias (SSB), and from the application or not of the inverse barometer (IB) correction. After an appropriate modelling of the TOPEX A/B bias, the two analysed SSB models induce small variations in sea level trend, from 0.0 to 0.2 mm/yr, with a small latitude dependence. The difference in sea level trend determined by a non IB-corrected series and an IB-corrected one has a strong regional dependence with large differences in the shape of the interannual signals and in the derived linear trends. The use of two different drift models for the TOPEX Microwave Radiometer (TMR) has a small but non negligible effect on the North Atlantic sea level trend of about 0.1 mm/yr. The interannual signals of sea level time series derived with the NASA and the CNES orbits respectively, show a small departure in the middle of the series, which has no impact on the derived sea level trend. These results strike the need for a continuous improvement in the modelling of the various effects that influence the altimeter measurement.