Radial surface currents from space: An opportunity for mean dynamic topography estimation?

Abstract

We analyze the feasibility of so-called radial surface currents as derived from Sentinel-1 Wave mode Doppler shift observations to support the geodetic estimation of the mean dynamic topography (MDT). Broadly defined as subtracting the geoid from the mean sea surface, this separation problem suffers from data inhomogeneities and usually requires strong prior assumptions about the MDT’s smoothness. Recent advancements in calibration and current retrieval methodology for Sentinel-1 data give reason to assess potential gains from this observation type, which can be linked to the gradient of the MDT under geostrophic approximation. Due to current lack of long time-series, we synthesize 10 years of observations from daily surface currents grids and include these in a parametric least-squares adjustment of the MDT. Our results utilizing the synthetic data in place of smoothness constraints are promising, showing 2 cm RMS agreement with a state-of-the-art MDT model.