Monomission Corrected Sea Surface Heights (CorSSH)

Contents: along-track corrected sea surface heights wrt reference ellipsoid

Use: stationary or long-term geophysical and ocean phenomenon studies

The data are mono altimeter satellite product, with corrections and geophysical
parameters. Significant wave heights and backscatter coefficient are also
provided. Data available in delayed time in NetCDF format.

Two types of products are available:
- "Ref" (Reference) ones, where all corrections are stable all along the
period provided
- "Upd" (Updated) ones, where corrections are updated with the most
efficient algorithms available at the moment.

The TOPEX/POSEIDON Corrected Sea Surface Heights (T/P - CORSSH) or reduced
Geophysical Data Records are computed from the AVISO Merged Geophysical Data
Records (GDR-Ms) of the TOPEX/POSEIDON mission, the ERS-1 Corrected Sea Surface
Heights (ERS1 - CORSSH) or reduced Geophysical Data Records are computed from
the CERSAT OPRs of the ERS-1 mission. Basic GDRs are first validated -bad data
are rejected - and all altimetric corrections (environmental and orbit error
corrections including the inverse barometer correction) are applied to compute
the corrected sea surface height. Improved altimetric corrections are used when
available. Given the high accuracy of TOPEX/POSEIDON orbits, no orbit error
correction is calculated. The ERS-1 orbit error is calculated from a global
minimization of (TOPEX/POSEIDON , ERS-1) crossover differences. This method
provides ERS-1 orbits with an accuracy similar to TOPEX/POSEIDON orbits. It
also provides a homogeneous ERS-1 and TOPEX/POSEIDON data sets.

CORSSHs are also distributed on CD ROMs (ISO 9660). Each CD ROM contains one
year of data, one file per cycle. Each file contains the following fields per
second : latitude, longitude, time, corrected sea surface height, orbit error,
ocean tide (including loading tide), inverse barometer correction, significant
wave height, backscatter coefficient. Users may thus compute and apply
different oceanic tide correction, recalculate electromagnetic bias corrections
or chose not to apply inverse barometer effect or orbit error corrections.
CORSSHs are swath data and no images. CD ROMs contain read software for UNIX
and VMS systems. User handbooks - one for the CD ROM, one for the data products
- are distributed with the first CD ROM.