Ra-2/mwr Cross-calibration and Validation: Objectives, Approach, Results and Recommendations

ENVISAT carries a new generation radar altimeter (RA-2) and a microwave radiometer (MWR). RA-2 provides improved measurement performances and many new capabilities, which will benefit the science and application community. With almost two decades of altimetric measurements acquired by ESA, long-term evolution of parameters playing a key role in climate change can be addressed. This requires homogeneous data sets inter-calibrated at the millimeter level. The ENVISAT RA-2/MWR Cross-Calibration and Validation Team's objective is to cross-calibrate the RA-2 and MWR on ERS-2 and validate the user level geophysical products. The approach and results obtained on a limited set of data are reported here.