Knowledge of sea ice thickness is critical for the prediction of future climate, and for assessing the significance of changes in thickness. Sea ice thickness can be calculated from radar or laser satellite altimetry measurements of freeboard. However, a lack of knowledge of snow depth introduces significant uncertainties into these calculations. This paper compares the first coincident airborn...

Monitoring the variation of rivers and lakes is of great importance. Satellite radar altimetry is a promising technology to do this on a regional to global scale. Satellite radar altimetry data has been used successfully to observe water levels in lakes and (large) rivers, and has also been combined with hydrologic/hydrodynamic models. Except CryoSat-2, all radar altimetry missions have been op...

[1] We present the first two aircraft Global Positioning System (GPS)-reflection altimetry measurements, the most precise GPS ocean-altimetry measurement, and demonstrate the altimetric precision and spatial resolution necessary to map mesoscale eddies. Our first experiment demonstrated a 14-cm precision single-satellite ocean altimetry measurement while our more recent experiment demonstrates ...

This study presents an approach to determining the volume of water in small lakes (< 100 ha) by combining satellite altimetry data and high-resolution (HR) images. In spite of the strong interest in monitoring surface water resources on a small scale using radar altimetry and satellite imagery, no information is available about the limits of the remote-sensing technologies for small lakes mainl...

The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) and satellite altimetry can provide very detailed and accurate estimates of the mean dynamic topography (MDT) and geostrophic currents in China’s marginal seas, such as, the newest high-resolution GOCE gravity field model GOCONS-GCF-2-TIM-R4 and the new Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales mean sea surface model MSS_CNES_CLS_11 ...

D I R E C T measurement of large-scale ocean currents with current meter arrays is difficult and costly on basin scales. Since large-scale currents are very nearly in geostrophic balance, their velocity can be calculated from the pressure gradient on an equigeopotential surface. The surface geostrophic current therefore can be calculated from the deviation of sea level from the equigeopotential...

We examine the issue of sustained measurements of sea level in the coastal zone, first by summarizing the long-term observations from tide gauges, then showing how those are now complemented by improved satellite altimetry products in the coastal ocean. We present some of the progresses in coastal altimetry, both from dedicated reprocessing of the radar waveforms and from the development of imp...