CryoSat’s remarkable 14-year record of global ice and sea levels got another upgrade with the release of Cryo-TEMPO baseline C, which includes lots of new features and improvements.

Researchers interested in using CryoSat data to study Antarctic sea ice can now find Southern Ocean data in the newly named Winter Sea Ice product, which also features new near-real time functionality.

A brand-new Summer Sea Ice product also covers the full CryoSat record, bringing the total number of Cryo-TEMPO products to six. The new product enables, for the first time, year-round monitoring of Arctic sea ice.

Are you interested in using CryoSat SARIn data to study coastal oceans? The Coastal Ocean product now has extended coverage to include the North-East Atlantic and more.

CryoSat data to study lake and river water surface height have been given a boost, too. The Inland Water product now covers extra water bodies in the USA, Canada and Sweden.

All processors have been transferred to operation and full mission reprocessing has been completed for all themes except winter sea ice and polar ocean. Processing is ongoing, and data are uploaded in 1-year batches.

The new Baseline C products will soon be available on cs2eo.org, which recently included the Cryo-TEMPO Baseline B products in its latest release.

Here is a summary of the major updates to Cryo-TEMPO in baseline C, more details of which can be found via the website. New documentation is also available via the product handbook.

• Land Ice: Baseline-C introduces a new high-resolution echo relocation for Low Resolution Mode (LRM) Data, based on the Roemer et al., (2007) methodology [1], updates the L1b input data to use entirely ESA Baseline-E, and tunes the LRM retracker.
• Winter Sea Ice: Baseline-C adds data covering the Southern Ocean, introduces retrievals based upon the physical SAMOSA+ retracker, and includes a new Near Real Time product.
• Polar Ocean: Baseline-C adds data covering the Southern Ocean based upon the physical SAMOSA+ retracker, and a new Near Real Time product
• Summer Sea Ice: Development of a new operational Summer Sea Ice product covering the full CryoSat-2 record. This novel dataset, which comprises summer sea ice freeboards, will be valuable for Arctic forecasting and operations.
• Coastal Ocean: Baseline-C extends coverage to the North-East Atlantic region, with the inclusion of all the innovations already applied in the Coastal Ocean thematic product, plus the roll out of the SAMOSA+ retracker for SARIn acquisitions, providing complete coverage over both Mediterranean and North-East Atlantic basins.
• Inland Water: Baseline-C introduces inland water surface height estimates based on the SAMOSA+ retracker, which is particularly adapted to large lakes, together with the extraction of the river products based on river centrelines, which improves the measurement selection process for water surface height estimates.

About CryoTEMPO

Cryo-TEMPO delivers state-of-the-art CryoSat products to a broad range of users, particularly those new to CryoSat data. Thematic products allow quick and easy access to CryoSat’s unique, long-term satellite record of global ice and water spanning 14 years.

Developed by a consortium led by the UK Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling (CPOM), and the Lancaster University-UKCEH Centre of Excellence in Environmental Data Science (CEEDS), Cryo-TEMPO products are an invaluable resource for global cryosphere and hydrology research.

1. Roemer, S., Legrésy, B., Horwath, M., and Dietrich, R.: Refined analysis of radar altimetry data applied to the region of the subglacial Lake Vostok/Antarctica, Remote Sens. Environ., 106, 269–284, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2006.02.026, 2007.