Abstract
The traditional altimetry satellite, which is based on pulse-limited radar altimeter, only measures ocean surface heights along tracks; hence, leads to poorer accuracy in the east component of the vertical deflections compared to the north component, which in turn limits the final accuracy of the marine gravity field inversion. Wide-swath altimetry using radar interferometry can measure ocean surface heights in two dimensions and, thus, can be used to compute vertical deflections in an arbitrary direction with the same accuracy. This paper aims to investigate the impact of Interferometric Radar Altimeter (InRA) errors on gravity field inversion. The error propagation between gravity anomalies and InRA measurements is analyzed, and formulas of their relationship are given. By giving a group of possible InRA parameters, numerical simulations are conducted to analyze the accuracy of gravity anomaly inversion. The results show that the accuracy of the gravity anomalies is mainly influenced by the phase errors of InRA; and the errors of gravity anomalies have a linear approximation relationship with the phase errors. The results also show that the east component of the vertical deflections has almost the same accuracy as the north component.
Highlights
Since the first altimeter named Skylab was launched in 1973, altimetry technology has been applied in several satellite missions by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA), such as Geosat, Topex/Poseidon, Jason 1 and 2, etc
In order to show the relationship between phase errors and gravity anomaly accuracy, numerical tests are further conducted with the phase errors reset from 0.0005 to 0.005 rad at an equal interval of 0.0005 rad while maintaining the other parameters given in Tables 1 and 3
This research mainly focuses on analyzing the effects of Interferometric Radar Altimeter (InRA) errors on the accuracy of marine gravity field inversion
Summary
Since the first altimeter named Skylab was launched in 1973, altimetry technology has been applied in several satellite missions by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA), such as Geosat, Topex/Poseidon, Jason 1 and 2, etc. This is because altimetry plays a significant role in earth sciences. One of the main products provided by altimetry satellite missions is marine gravity field data, which is used widely in geodesy, geophysics, and marine science research [1,2]
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