Estimation of wave spectra with SWIM on CFOSAT- illustration on a real case

International audienceSWIM (Surface Wave Investigation and Monitoring) is a spaceborne radar pointing at nadir and small incidence angles, scanning in azimuth. It is designed for the measurement of directional ocean wave spectra and will be embarked on the CFOSAT (China France Oceanography SATellite) mission to be launched in 2014. The CFOSAT project is now in the C/D phase (manufacturing phase). Taking into account the very last definition of the instrument, we present here the expected performances for estimates of significant wave height and spectral parameters of long ocean waves. These performances have been obtained using numerical simulations taking into account instrument specifications and realistic sea surface conditions, in particular those corresponding to the Atlantic storm of November 2002, which caused the Prestige ship sinking and its terrible oil slick

Comparison of sea-ice freeboard distributions from aircraft data and cryosat-2

The only remote sensing technique capable of obtain- ing sea-ice thickness on basin-scale are satellite altime- ter missions, such as the 2010 launched CryoSat-2. It is equipped with a Ku-Band radar altimeter, which mea- sures the height of the ice surface above the sea level. This method requires highly accurate range measure- ments. During the CryoSat Validation Experiment (Cry- oVEx) 2011 in the Lincoln Sea, Cryosat-2 underpasses were accomplished with two aircraft, which carried an airborne laser-scanner, a radar altimeter and an electro- magnetic induction device for direct sea-ice thickness re- trieval. Both aircraft flew in close formation at the same time of a CryoSat-2 overpass. This is a study about the comparison of the sea-ice freeboard and thickness dis- tribution of airborne validation and CryoSat-2 measure- ments within the multi-year sea-ice region of the Lincoln Sea in spring, with respect to the penetration of the Ku- Band signal into the snow