An improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative
Sea level is a very sensitive index of climate change since it integrates the impacts of ocean warming and ice mass loss from glaciers and the ice sheets. Sea level has been listed as an essential climate variable (ECV) by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). During the past 25 years, the sea...
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
---|---|
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2018-02-01
|
Series: | Earth System Science Data |
Online Access: | https://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/10/281/2018/essd-10-281-2018.pdf |
id |
doaj-78549472f5694a74970c08c5091baa0d |
---|---|
record_format |
Article |
spelling |
doaj-78549472f5694a74970c08c5091baa0d2020-11-24T22:35:55ZengCopernicus PublicationsEarth System Science Data1866-35081866-35162018-02-011028130110.5194/essd-10-281-2018An improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the ESA Climate Change InitiativeJ.-F. Legeais0M. Ablain1L. Zawadzki2H. Zuo3J. A. Johannessen4M. G. Scharffenberg5L. Fenoglio-Marc6M. J. Fernandes7M. J. Fernandes8O. B. Andersen9S. Rudenko10S. Rudenko11P. Cipollini12G. D. Quartly13M. Passaro14A. Cazenave15A. Cazenave16J. Benveniste17Collecte Localisation Satellite (CLS), 31520 Ramonville-Saint-Agne, FranceCollecte Localisation Satellite (CLS), 31520 Ramonville-Saint-Agne, FranceCollecte Localisation Satellite (CLS), 31520 Ramonville-Saint-Agne, FranceEuropean Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, UKNansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC), Bergen, NorwayUniversity of Hamburg, Hamburg, GermanyUniversity of Bonn, Bonn, GermanyFaculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, 4169-007 Porto, PortugalCentro Interdisciplinar de Investigação Marinha e Ambiental (CIIMAR), 4450-208 Matosinhos, PortugalDTU Space, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, DenmarkDeutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut, Technische Universität München, 80333 Munich, GermanyHelmholtz Centre Potsdam – GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, 14473 Potsdam, GermanyNational Oceanography Centre, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UKPlymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth, PL1 3DH, UKDeutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut, Technische Universität München, 80333 Munich, GermanyLEGOS, 31400 Toulouse, FranceISSI, Bern, SwitzerlandESA/ESRIN, 00044 Frascati, ItalySea level is a very sensitive index of climate change since it integrates the impacts of ocean warming and ice mass loss from glaciers and the ice sheets. Sea level has been listed as an essential climate variable (ECV) by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). During the past 25 years, the sea level ECV has been measured from space by different altimetry missions that have provided global and regional observations of sea level variations. As part of the Climate Change Initiative (CCI) program of the European Space Agency (ESA) (established in 2010), the Sea Level project (SL_cci) aimed to provide an accurate and homogeneous long-term satellite-based sea level record. At the end of the first phase of the project (2010–2013), an initial version (v1.1) of the sea level ECV was made available to users (Ablain et al., 2015). During the second phase of the project (2014–2017), improved altimeter standards were selected to produce new sea level products (called SL_cci v2.0) based on nine altimeter missions for the period 1993–2015 (<a href="https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-sea_level_cci-1993_2015-v_2.0-201612" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-sea_level_cci-1993_2015-v_2.0-201612</a>; Legeais and the ESA SL_cci team, 2016c). Corresponding orbit solutions, geophysical corrections and altimeter standards used in this v2.0 dataset are described in detail in Quartly et al. (2017). The present paper focuses on the description of the SL_cci v2.0 ECV and associated uncertainty and discusses how it has been validated. Various approaches have been used for the quality assessment such as internal validation, comparisons with sea level records from other groups and with in situ measurements, sea level budget closure analyses and comparisons with model outputs. Compared with the previous version of the sea level ECV, we show that use of improved geophysical corrections, careful bias reduction between missions and inclusion of new altimeter missions lead to improved sea level products with reduced uncertainties on different spatial and temporal scales. However, there is still room for improvement since the uncertainties remain larger than the GCOS requirements (GCOS, 2011). Perspectives on subsequent evolution are also discussed.https://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/10/281/2018/essd-10-281-2018.pdf |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
J.-F. Legeais M. Ablain L. Zawadzki H. Zuo J. A. Johannessen M. G. Scharffenberg L. Fenoglio-Marc M. J. Fernandes M. J. Fernandes O. B. Andersen S. Rudenko S. Rudenko P. Cipollini G. D. Quartly M. Passaro A. Cazenave A. Cazenave J. Benveniste |
spellingShingle |
J.-F. Legeais M. Ablain L. Zawadzki H. Zuo J. A. Johannessen M. G. Scharffenberg L. Fenoglio-Marc M. J. Fernandes M. J. Fernandes O. B. Andersen S. Rudenko S. Rudenko P. Cipollini G. D. Quartly M. Passaro A. Cazenave A. Cazenave J. Benveniste An improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative Earth System Science Data |
author_facet |
J.-F. Legeais M. Ablain L. Zawadzki H. Zuo J. A. Johannessen M. G. Scharffenberg L. Fenoglio-Marc M. J. Fernandes M. J. Fernandes O. B. Andersen S. Rudenko S. Rudenko P. Cipollini G. D. Quartly M. Passaro A. Cazenave A. Cazenave J. Benveniste |
author_sort |
J.-F. Legeais |
title |
An improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative |
title_short |
An improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative |
title_full |
An improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative |
title_fullStr |
An improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative |
title_full_unstemmed |
An improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative |
title_sort |
improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the esa climate change initiative |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
series |
Earth System Science Data |
issn |
1866-3508 1866-3516 |
publishDate |
2018-02-01 |
description |
Sea level is a very sensitive index of climate change since it integrates the impacts of ocean warming and ice mass loss from glaciers and the ice sheets. Sea level has been listed as an essential climate variable (ECV) by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS). During the past 25 years, the sea level ECV has been measured from space by different altimetry missions that have provided global and regional observations of sea level variations. As part of the Climate Change Initiative (CCI) program of the European Space Agency (ESA) (established in 2010), the Sea Level project (SL_cci) aimed to provide an accurate and homogeneous long-term satellite-based sea level record. At the end of the first phase of the project (2010–2013), an initial version (v1.1) of the sea level ECV was made available to users (Ablain et al., 2015). During the second phase of the project (2014–2017), improved altimeter standards
were selected to produce new sea level products (called SL_cci v2.0) based on nine altimeter missions for the period 1993–2015
(<a href="https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-sea_level_cci-1993_2015-v_2.0-201612" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-sea_level_cci-1993_2015-v_2.0-201612</a>; Legeais and the ESA SL_cci team, 2016c). Corresponding orbit solutions, geophysical corrections and altimeter standards used in this v2.0 dataset are described in detail in Quartly et al. (2017). The present paper focuses on the description of the SL_cci v2.0 ECV and associated uncertainty and discusses how it has been validated. Various approaches have been used for the quality assessment such as internal validation, comparisons with sea level records from other groups and with in situ measurements, sea level budget closure analyses and comparisons with model outputs. Compared with the previous version of the sea level ECV, we show that use of improved geophysical
corrections, careful bias reduction between missions and inclusion of new altimeter missions lead to improved sea level products with reduced uncertainties on different spatial and temporal scales. However, there is still room for improvement since the uncertainties remain larger than the GCOS requirements (GCOS, 2011). Perspectives on subsequent evolution are also discussed. |
url |
https://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/10/281/2018/essd-10-281-2018.pdf |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT jflegeais animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT mablain animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT lzawadzki animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT hzuo animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT jajohannessen animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT mgscharffenberg animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT lfenogliomarc animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT mjfernandes animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT mjfernandes animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT obandersen animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT srudenko animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT srudenko animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT pcipollini animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT gdquartly animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT mpassaro animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT acazenave animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT acazenave animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT jbenveniste animprovedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT jflegeais improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT mablain improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT lzawadzki improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT hzuo improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT jajohannessen improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT mgscharffenberg improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT lfenogliomarc improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT mjfernandes improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT mjfernandes improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT obandersen improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT srudenko improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT srudenko improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT pcipollini improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT gdquartly improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT mpassaro improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT acazenave improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT acazenave improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative AT jbenveniste improvedandhomogeneousaltimetersealevelrecordfromtheesaclimatechangeinitiative |
_version_ |
1725722153299476480 |