Satellite Altimetry Applications off the Coasts of North America

Abstract

In many ways applications of satellite altimetry along the coasts of North America are representative of similar applications elsewhere in the world. On the east coast, North America has a fairly broad continental shelf which impacts coastal altimetry applications more than the relatively narrow shelf of the west coast. The Gulf of Mexico is a unique coastal region where altimetry mapping of ocean currents is significantly more successful than using traditional satellite measurements of sea surface temperature and ocean color. Meteorological conditions differ strongly between the east and west coasts with corresponding impact on the use of altimetry. Also there have been many more studies of altimeter data on the west coast than on the east coast of North America. We summarize here past studies of altimetric applications for all three coastal regions (West and East Coasts and the Gulf of Mexico) and briefly discuss the implications of tidal effects, impacts of water vapor corrections, and the need for the retracking of near coastal altimetric waveforms.