Quality assessment of the mapping of satellite ocean altimeter data

Abstract

Based on the orbital data of the Jason3 satellite, the absolute dynamic topography (ADT) of 1/8°×1/8° and 1/4°×1/4° products distributed by AVISO (hereinafter referred to as AVISO1/8° and AVISO1/4°) was interpolated into the Jason3 orbit, and the effective resolution and merged product error of the two products were evaluated with the Northwest Pacific Ocean as the target area. In addition, combined with independent SST data and drifting buoy data, the ground conversion field in the merged data was tested, and the results showed that although the spatial resolution of AVISO1/8° was doubled compared with AVISO1/4°, its effect was not significantly improved, and the error in some areas was even slightly greater than that of AVISO1/4°. Finally, these two merged datasets were used to identify mesoscale vortices. AVISO1/8° have higher precision and make identifying vortex structures easier. The two products are consistent in identifying vortices with relatively large radius, while there are differences in identifying vortices with relatively small radius.