The complete Geosat altimeter GDR handbook

"The U.S. Navy Geosat altimeter mission lasted for nearly 5 years (March 1985 to January 1990) and collected approximately 750 million measurements of sea level, wave height, and wind speed over the global oceans. The raw data from Geosat’s exact repeat mission are archived on more than three thousand 9-track tapes at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. However, most ofthe information needed for ocean dynamics research is contained in a set of thirty-six geophysical data record (GDR) tapes prepared by NOAA and distributed to users each month during the mission (Cheney et al. 1987; 1988; Doyle et al. 1989; 1990). The accuracy of these original GDRs has since been significantly improved, primarily by incorporation of new satellite orbits and water vapor corrections (Cheney et al. 1991b). This handbook documents the new T2 GDRs being distributed by NOAA on six CD ROMs. For completeness, the manual includes a description of the original GDRs and also gives the format for NOAA’s classified geodetic mission GDRs, subsets of which have been released to the public."