Retrieval of Sea Surface Height from CYGNSS Data with Tropospheric Delay

Abstract

An analysis of the delay Doppler maps (DDMs) data from the CYGNSS satellites is implemented to derive the sea surface height (SSH). An SSH estimation algorithm, the leading edge derivation (LED) method which is applied to the delay waveforms, is applied to the DDMs, while the tropospheric delay methods, the Saastamoinen method (SM) and the numerical method (NM) are used. The results show that when the SSH from Jason-2 is referred to as the truth, if the tropospheric delay is corrected, the SSH bias can decrease. The resulted SSH bias from the Jason-2 SSH by the LED retrieval method is of order meter. The resulted SSH deviation from the truth by the NM scheme is half as small as that by the SM scheme. Since the SM scheme is not applicable to the nonhydrostatical condition, the resulted bias is larger. The work can be applied to the Beidou system in the future.