The Radar Altimeter Database System RADS was launched by DEOS in 2001 as a precursor to an operational observing system as envisaged by the upcoming International Altimetry Service IAS. It is a facility to easily manage and access calibrated and validated altimeter data with consistency as common denominator. Whenever new data, models or knowledge arrive, the system is updated. We have now over...

[I] The slopes of the wavenumber spectra of sea surface height (SSH) and kinetic energy (KE) have been used to infer "interior" or surface quasi-geostrophic (QG or SQG) dynamics of the ocean. However, inspection of spectral slopes for altimeter SSH in the mesoscale band of 70 to 250 km shows much flatter slopes than the QG or SQG predictions over most of the ocean. Comparison of altimeter waven...

[1] The acquisition of new global elevation data from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, carried on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, permits quantification of the surface roughness properties of the Moon at unprecedented scales and resolution. We map lunar surface roughness using a range of parameters: median absolute slope, both directional (along‐track) and bidirectional (in two dimensions);...

Erosion by flowing water is one of the major forces shaping the surface of Earth. Studies in the last decade have shown, in particular, that the drainage region of rivers, where water is collected, exhibits scale invariant features characterized by exponents that are the same for rivers around the world. Here we show that from the data obtained by the MOLA altimeter of the Mars Global Surveyor ...

ASTRACT A global evaluation of RA sigma0 has been carried out over all non-ice covered land surfaces for which altimeter data are available, using ERS-1 Geodetic Mission data, together with ERS-1 and ERS-2 35 day data. This global survey has identified several large land areas over which the surface characteristics and aridity permit cross-calibration of altimeter sigma0 to be made to an accura...

Ocean surface films can damp short capillary-gravity waves, reduce the surface mean square slope, and induce ‘‘sigma0 blooms’’ in satellite altimeter data. No study has ascertained the effect of such film on altimeter measurements due to lack of film data. The availability of Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) oil cover, daily oil spill extent, and thickness data acquired duri...

The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) aboard ICESat, launched in January 2003, has been designed to detect and monitor changes in the cryosphere. The first objective of this paper is to present highresolution ice-surface elevation maps derived from GLAS data, using geostatistical analysis. In a regional study of Walgreen Coast and Northern Ellsworth Land, West Antarctica, differences in ...

The surface of the ocean bulges outward and inward reflecting the topography of the ocean floor. A dense mapping of ocean surface topography from declassified Geosat altimeter data (US Navy), ERS-1 altimeter data (European Space Agency), and repeat-track coverage from the Topex/Poseidon altimeter (NASA and CNES) has provided the first view of the ocean floor structures in many remote areas of t...