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Envisat Altimetry Full Mission Reprocessing V3.0

05 Jul 2018

The ESA Envisat Altimetry Full Mission Reprocessing (FMR) has been completed with the generation of the V3.0 mission data set. This FMR follows the first Envisat Altimetry reprocessing Version (V2.1) completed in 2012. The GDR and S-GDR Level 2 data products have been reprocessed for all cycles from 6 to 113 (May 2002 to April 2012) into a homogeneous standard in NetCDF format (close to Sentinel-3).

The reprocessed Envisat Altimetry data is available to the user community via direct download from the ESA online archives. For new users, access is provided through ESA Fast Registration.

Please consult the "Product Quality README file for ENVISAT RA-2/MWR Level 2 V3.0 dataset Readme file" before using the new data.

The previous Envisat Altimetry reprocessing Version (V2.1) will remain available on the same platform for the following 6 months.

Envisat map, SSH differences
Map of SSH difference of variances at crossovers over cycle 6 to 112

 

Improvements

For many aspects, the V3.0 reprocessed data are better than the previous dataset (V2.1):

  • In terms of available and valid data, the coverage is better, notably thanks to a better availability of MWR data at the beginning of the mission.
  • In terms of performance at cross-overs, the quality is improved: the annual signal and average of Mean SSH is decreased, as well as the standard deviation.
  • The new MWR characteristics were shown to improve largely the global quality of data. As well as the new tide model, the new MSS and the new orbit standard
  • The Global and regional Mean Sea Level trend is very weakly impacted though the effort was put, this time, on the mesoscale restitution, rather than long term drift, as during V2.1 reprocessing.

 

Documentation

The following associated documents related to the V3.0 data set are available:

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