Altimetry

The measurements show how the height of the sea surface defined above a mean water surface varies from 2002 to 2010. The altime tridata give the sea surface height above the ellipsoid and the time series shows how it changes with time. The dataset can in principle be used to calculate climatic sea level change along the Norwegian coast, but the time series made available is too short for a reliable estimate to be calculated. Geodesy currently has no plans to make more of this type of data available, unless special needs should arise. The files constitute a time series of altimetry measurements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_altimeter) carried out by the satellite ENVISAT (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envisat). Each file contains data from a satellite cycle, that is, the period the satellite needs to make a complete mapping of the Earth (35 days).