Satellite Altimetry for Ocean and Coastal Applications: A Review

More than 30 years of observations from an international suite of satellite altimeter missions continue to provide key data enabling research discoveries and a broad spectrum of operational and user-driven applications. These missions were designed to advance technologies and to an-swer scientific questions about ocean circulation, ocean heat content, and the impact of climate change on these Earth systems. They are also a valuable resource for the operational needs of oceanographic and weather forecasting agencies that provide information to shipping and fishing vessels and offshore operations for route optimization and safety, as well as for other deci-sion-makers in coastal, water resources and disaster management fields. This time series of pre-cise measurements of ocean surface topography (OST)—the “hills and valleys” of the ocean sur-face—reveals changes in ocean dynamic topography, tracks sea level variations at global to re-gional scales, and provides key information about ocean trends reflecting climate change in our warming world. Advancing technologies in new satellite systems allows measurements at higher spatial resolution ever-closer to coastlines, where the impacts of storms, waves, and sea level rise on coastal communities and infrastructure are manifest. We review some collaborative efforts of international space agencies, including NASA, CNES, NOAA, ESA, and EUMETSAT, which have contributed to a collection of use cases of satellite altimetry in operational and decision-support contexts. The extended time series of precise ocean surface topography measurements obtained from these satellite altimeter missions, along with advances in satellite technology that have al-lowed for higher resolution measurements closer to coastlines, has enabled a range of such appli-cations. The resulting body of knowledge and data enables better assessment of storms, waves, sea level rise impacts on coastal communities and infrastructure amongst other key contributions for societal benefit. Although not exhaustive, this work provides a broad overview with specific examples of the important role of satellite altimetry in ocean and coastal applications, thus justi-fying the significant resource contributions made by international space agencies in the develop-ment of these missions.