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| Titel |
ESA Sea Level Climate Change Initiative |
| VerfasserIn |
Gilles Larnicol, Anny Cazenave, Yannice Faugère, Michael Ablain, Johnny Johannessen, Detlef Stammer, Gary Timms, Per Knudsen, Paolo Cipollini, Mónica Roca, Sergei Rudenko, Joana Fernandes, Magdalena Balmaseda, Thierry Guinle, Jérôme Benveniste |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2013
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 15 (2013) |
| Datensatznummer |
250081932
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Sea level is a very sensitive index of climate change and variability. As the ocean warms in
response to global warming, sea waters expand and, as a result, sea level rises. When
mountain glaciers melt in response to increasing air temperature, sea level rises because more
freshwater glacial runoff discharges into the oceans. Similarly, ice mass loss from the ice
sheets causes sea-level rise. Therefore, understanding the sea level variability and changes
implies in addition to the understanding of the ocean variability and the exchanges between
ocean, land, cryosphere, and atmosphere, an accurate monitoring of the sea level variable at
climate scales. That is why Sea Level is one of the variables selected in the frame of the ESA
Climate change Initiative (CCI) program initiated by ESA in July 2010. In overall, this
program aims to provide an adequate, comprehensive, and timely response to the extremely
challenging set of requirements for highly stable, long-term satellite-based products
for climate, that have been addressed to Space Agencies via the Global Climate
Observing System (GCOS) and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites
(CEOS).
In order to achieve this global objective, the specific objectives of the sea level CCI
project are: to involve the climate research community to collect their needs and feedbacks on
product quality, to develop, test and select the best algorithms and standards to generate a
climate time series (so called SL ECV products), and to provide a complete specification
of the production system. After two of projects the first two objectives have been
completed.
Hereafter, we aim to provide an overview and the current status of the Sea Level
project of the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) that has started in july 2010. The
main objective of this project is to produce and validate the Sea Level Essential
Climate Variable (ECV) product. Two years after the project kick-off, the 20 Years of
Progress in Radar Altimetry Symposium was the opportunity to unveil this 18 years
climate time-series based on satellite altimetry measurements. We also describe
the different activities which were necessary to deliver the ECV products: collect
and refine the user requirements, develop, test and select the best algorithms for
climate applications. The production system and a brief description of the main
product characteristics are provided as well as preliminary results of the product
validation. |
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