MAIN THEMES OF THE "15 YEARS OF PROGRESS IN RADAR ALTIMETRY" SYMPOSIUM

* 15 years of Progress in Radar Altimetry: a historical perspective (keynote presentations)

• historical overview
• lessons learned
• successful and unachievable projects, unexpected applications (e.g., River and Lake level monitoring, MSL monitoring, Global DEM, tsunami observation)

* Advances in our understanding of the ocean

• ocean currents: how have things improved in 15 years?
• large scale ocean phenomena: intra-seasonal, seasonal cyle, El Nino, rossby waves, pluri-annual oscillations
• tide modeling, non-linear components, internal waves
• high frequency signals, mesoscale and coastal applications
• marine meteorology, SWH and wind speed,
• detecting rain, gaz exchange fluxes at the surface

* Advances in our understanding of the Cryosphere

• Antarctic and Greenland mass balance
• sea ice monitoring, sea ice thickness

* Altimetry over Land

• global DEMs
• river and lake level monitoring
• surface roughness

* Altimetric contributions to gravity field, marine geoïd, bathymetry modeling and orbit determination

• the impact of ERS-1 geodetic mission, further improvements, and expectations.
• ocean floor topography mapping
• orbit determination and gravity model tailoring: contributions of DORIS,
• PRARE, GPS, laser techiques and altimetry
• gravimetry results from geodetic mission (CHAMP, GRACE)

* Building the 15-year altimetric record: challenges and achievements

• (cross-)calibration and long-term monitoring of instruments: biases, drift models, shortcomings
• multi-satellite sea level change: the spatial and temporal record
• advances in precision: from 15 cm to the 1 cm challenge!
• interesting/unexpected scientific results (Mean Sea Level monitoring, decadal oscillations...)

* Synergy between Altimetry, other data and models: "the integrated approach"

• comparison with in-situ data: tide gauges, ship data, buoys and Argo profilers ...
• sea level, sea surface temperature, ocean colour (and on-coming sea surface salinity): a marriage made in space
• altimetry impact in ocean monitoring and forecasting operational systems

* Outlook

• requirements for future Altimetric missions (Oceanography, Cryosphere, Coastal Zone, Land)
• operational Oceanography missions and continuity
• third generation altimeters (synthetic aperture and wide swath instruments)
• the need for a Hydrology mission
• merging Altimeter data with spaceborne Gravity mission data

* Outreach

• education programs
• science return towards the public
• the use of the internet and other media in promoting satellite altimetry 

The "15 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry" Symposium will take place in the first half of the week (3 days).