Altimetry for the future: Building on 25 years of progress

Saleh Abdalla (1) , Abdolnabi Abdeh Kolahchi (2) , Michaël Ablain , Susheel Adusumilli (3) , Suchandra Aich Bhowmick (4) , Eva Alou-Font , Laiba Amarouche (5) , Ole Baltazar Andersen (6) , Helena Antich (7) , Lotfi Aouf (8) , Brian Arbic (9) , Thomas Armitage (10) , Sabine Arnault (11) , Camila Artana (12) , Giuseppe Aulicino (13) , Nadia Ayoub (14) , Sergei Badulin (15) , Steven Baker (16) , Chris Banks (17) , Lifeng Bao (18) , Silvia Barbetta (19) , Bàrbara Barceló-Llull (7) , François Barlier (20) , Sujit Basu (4) , Peter Bauer-Gottwein (21) , Matthias Becker (22) , Brian Beckley , Nicole Bellefond (23) , Tatyana Belonenko (24) , Mounir Benkiran (12) , Touati Benkouider (25) , Ralf Bennartz (26) , Jérôme Benveniste (27) , Nicolas Bercher , Muriel Berge-Nguyen (14) , Joao Bettencourt (28) , Fabien Blarel (14) , Alejandro Blazquez (14) , Denis Blumstein (14) , Pascal Bonnefond (29) , Franck Borde (30) , Jérôme Bouffard (27) , François Boy (23) , Jean-Paul Boy (31) , Cédric Brachet (32) , Pierre Brasseur (33) , Alexander Braun (34) , Luca Brocca (19) , David Brockley (16) , Laurent Brodeau (35) , Shannon Brown (10) , Sean Bruinsma (23, 36) , Anna Bulczak (37) , Sammie Buzzard (38) , Madeleine Cahill (39) , Stéphane Calmant (14) , Michel Calzas (32) , Stefania Camici (19) , Mathilde Cancet (40) , Hugues Capdeville (5) , Claudia Cristina Carabajal (41) , Loren Carrere (5) , Anny Cazenave (14, 42) , Eric Chassignet (43) , Prakash Chauhan (44) , Selma Cherchali (23) , Teresa Chereskin (3) , Cecile Cheymol (23) , Daniele Ciani (45) , Paolo Cipollini (46) , Francesca Cirillo (47) , Emmanuel Cosme (33) , Steve Coss (48) , Yuri Cotroneo (13) , David Cotton (49) , Alexandre Couhert (23) , Sophie Coutin-Faye (23) , Jean-François Crétaux (14, 23) , Frédéric Cyr (50) , Francesco d'Ovidio (51) , José Darrozes (36) , Cedric David (10) , Nadim Dayoub (17) , Danielle de Staerke (23) , Xiaoli Deng (52) , Shailen Desai (10) , Jean-Damien Desjonqueres (10) , Denise Dettmering (53) , Alessandro Di Bella (6) , Lara Díaz-Barroso (54) , Gerald Dibarboure (23) , Habib Boubacar Dieng (14) , Salvatore Dinardo (5) , Henryk Dobslaw (55) , Guillaume Dodet (56) , Andrea M. Doglioli (57) , Alessio Domeneghetti (58) , David Donahue (59) , Shenfu Dong (60) , Craig Donlon (30) , Joël Dorandeu , Christine Drezen (32) , Mark Drinkwater (30) , Yves Du Penhoat (14) , Brian Dushaw , Alejandro Egido , Svetlana Erofeeva (61) , Philippe Escudier , Saskia Esselborn (55) , Pierre Exertier (36) , Ronan Fablet (62, 63, 64) , Cédric Falco (65) , Sinead Louise Farrell (66) , Yannice Faugere (5) , Pierre Femenias (27) , Luciana Fenoglio (67) , Joana Fernandes (68) , Juan Gabriel Fernández (68) , Pascale Ferrage (23) , Ramiro Ferrari (69) , Lionel Fichen (32) , Paolo Filippucci , Stylianos Flampouris , Sara Fleury (14) , Marco Fornari , Rene Forsberg (6) , Frédéric Frappart (14) , Marie-Laure Frery (5) , Pablo Garcia , Albert Garcia-Mondejar , Julia Gaudelli (16) , Lucile Gaultier , Augusto Getirana , Ferran Gibert , Artur Gil , Lin Gilbert (16) , Sarah Gille , Luisella Giulicchi (30) , Jesús Gómez-Enri , Laura Gómez-Navarro (33) , Christine Gommenginger (17) , Lionel Gourdeau (14) , David Griffin , Andreas Groh (70) , Alexandre Guerin (23) , Raul Guerrero (71) , Thierry Guinle (23) , Praveen Gupta , Benjamin Gutknecht , Mathieu Hamon , Guoqi Han (72) , Danièle Hauser (73) , Veit Helm , Stefan Hendricks , Fabrice Hernandez , Anna Hogg , Martin Horwath , Martina Idžanović , Peter Janssen , Eric Jeansou (40) , Yongjun Jia , Yuanyuan Jia , Liguang Jiang (21) , Johnny Johannessen , Masafumi Kamachi , Svetlana Karimova , Kathryn Kelly , Sung Yong Kim (74) , Robert King , Cecile M.M. Kittel (21) , Patrice Klein (75) , Anna Klos , Per Knudsen (6) , Rolf Koenig (55) , Andrey Kostianoy (15) , Alexei Kouraev (14) , Raj Kumar , Sylvie Labroue (5) , Loreley Selene Lago , Juliette Lambin (23) , Léa Lasson (14) , Olivier Laurain , Rémi Laxenaire (43) , Clara Lázaro (68) , Sophie Le Gac (23) , Julien Le Sommer (33) , Pierre-Yves Le Traon , Sergey Lebedev , Fabien Léger (14) , Benoît Legresy , Frank Lemoine , Luc Lenain , Eric Leuliette , Marina Lévy (51) , John Lillibridge , Jianqiang Liu , W. Llovel (56) , Florent Lyard (14) , Claire Macintosh , Eduard Makhoul Varona , Cécile Manfredi (23) , Frédéric Marin (14) , Evan Mason (7) , Christian Massari , Constantin Mavrocordatos (30) , Nikolai Maximenko , Malcolm Mcmillan , Thierry Medina (23) , Angelique Melet , Marco Meloni , Stelios Mertikas , Sammy Metref (33) , Benoit Meyssignac (14, 23) , Jean-François Minster , Thomas Moreau (5) , Daniel Moreira , Yves Morel (14) , Rosemary Morrow (14) , John Moyard (23) , Sandrine Mulet (5) , Marc Naeije , Robert Steven Nerem , Hans Ngodock , Karina Nielsen (6) , Jan Even Øie Nilsen , Fernando Niño (14) , Carolina Nogueira Loddo , Camille Noûs , Estelle Obligis , Inès Otosaka , Michiel Otten , Berguzar Oztunali Ozbahceci , Roshin P. Raj , Rodrigo Paiva , Guillermina Paniagua (69) , Fernando Paolo (10) , Adrien Paris , Ananda Pascual (7) , Marcello Passaro (53) , Stephan Paul , Tamlin Pavelsky , Christopher Pearson , Thierry Penduff (33) , Fukai Peng (52) , Felix Perosanz (23) , Nicolas Picot (23) , Fanny Piras (5) , Valerio Poggiali , Étienne Poirier , Sonia Ponce de León (28) , Sergey Prants , Catherine Prigent (76) , Christine Provost (77) , M-Isabelle Pujol (5) , Bo Qiu , Yves Quilfen (56) , Ali Rami , R. Keith Raney , Matthias Raynal , Elisabeth Remy , Frédérique Rémy (14) , Marco Restano , Annie Richardson (10) , Donald Richardson , Robert Ricker , Martina Ricko , Eero Rinne , Stine Kildegaard Rose (6) , Vinca Rosmorduc (5) , Sergei Rudenko (53) , Simón Ruiz (7) , Barbara Ryan (78) , Corinne Salaün , Antonio Sanchez-Roman (7) , Louise Sandberg Sørensen (6) , David Sandwell , Martin Saraceno , Michele Scagliola , Philippe Schaeffer (5) , Martin Scharffenberg , Remko Scharroo , Andreas Schiller , Raphael Schneider , Christian Schwatke (53) , Andrea Scozzari , Enrico Ser-Giacomi , F. Seyler , Rashmi Shah (10) , Rashmi Sharma , Andrew Shaw , Andrew Shepherd , Jay Shriver , C.K. Shum , Wim Simons , Sebatian Simonsen (6) , Thomas Slater , Walter Smith , Saulo Soares , Mikhail Sokolovskiy , Laurent Soudarin (5) , Ciprian Spatar , Sabrina Speich , Margaret Srinivasan (10) , Meric Srokosz (17) , Emil Stanev , Joanna Staneva , Nathalie Steunou (23) , Julienne Stroeve (38) , Bob Su , Yohanes Budi Sulistioadi , Debadatta Swain , Annick Sylvestre-Baron (23) , Nicolas Taburet (5) , Rémi Tailleux , Katsumi Takayama , Byron Tapley , Angelica Tarpanelli , Gilles Tavernier (23) , Laurent Testut (14) , Praveen Thakur , Pierre Thibaut , Luanne Thompson , Joaquín Tintoré , Céline Tison (23) , Cédric Tourain (23) , Jean Tournadre (56) , Bill Townsend , Ngan Tran (5) , Sébastien Trilles , Michel Tsamados (38) , Kuo-Hsin Tseng , Clément Ubelmann , Bernd Uebbing , Oscar Vergara (14) , Jacques Verron (33) , Telmo Vieira (68) , Stefano Vignudelli , Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer , Pieter Visser , Frédéric Vivier (51) , Denis Volkov , Karina von Schuckmann , Valerii Vuglinskii , Pierrik Vuilleumier (30) , Blake Walter (79) , Jida Wang (79) , Chao Wang (80) , Christopher Watson (81) , John Wilkin (82) , Josh Willis , Hilary Wilson , Philip Woodworth , Kehan Yang (83) , Fangfang Yao , Raymond Zaharia , Elena Zakharova (84) , Edward Zaron (85) , Yongsheng Zhang , Zhongxiang Zhao (86) , Vadim Zinchenko , Victor Zlotnicki (10)

1 ECMWF - European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
2 SCWRMI - Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Research Institute
3 SIO - UC San Diego - Scripps Institution of Oceanography
4 SAC - Space Applications Centre [Ahmedabad]
5 CLS - Collecte Localisation Satellites
6 DTU Space - National Space Institute [Lyngby]
7 IMEDEA - Institut Mediterrani d'Estudis Avancats
8 DIRSE - Météo-France Direction Interrégionale Sud-Est
9 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences [Ann Arbor]
10 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
11 VOG - Variabilité de l'Océan et de la Glace de mer
12 Mercator Océan
13 PARTHENOPE - Università degli Studi di Napoli “Parthenope” = University of Naples
14 LEGOS - Laboratoire d'études en Géophysique et océanographie spatiales
15 SIO - P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology
16 Department of Space and Climate Physics [UCL London]
17 NOC - National Oceanography Centre
18 Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics [Wuhan]
19 IRPI - Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica [Perugia]
20 GEOAZUR 7329 - Géoazur
21 DTU Environment, Department of Environmental Engineering
22 TU Darmstadt - Technische Universität Darmstadt - Technical University of Darmstadt
23 CNES - Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse]
24 SPbU - St Petersburg State University
25 ASAL - Agence Spatiale Algérienne = Algerian Space Agency
26 Vanderbilt University [Nashville]
27 ESRIN - European Space Research Institute
28 CENTEC - Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering
29 SYRTE - Systèmes de Référence Temps Espace
30 ESTEC - European Space Research and Technology Centre
31 EOST - Ecole et Observatoire des Sciences de la Terre
32 INSU Division Technique de l'INSU [Site de Brest]
33 IGE - Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement
34 Queen's University [Kingston, Canada]
35 OceanNext
36 GET - Géosciences Environnement Toulouse
37 IO-PAN - Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences
38 CPOM - Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling
39 AIMS Townsville - Australian Institute of Marine Science [Townsville]
40 NOVELTIS [Sté]
41 SSAI - Science Systems and Applications, Inc. [Hampton]
42 ISSI - International Space Science Institute [Bern]
43 COAPS - Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies
44 IIRS - Indian Institute of Remote Sensing
45 ISMAR - Istituto di Science Marine
46 ECSAT - European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications
47 Airbus Group [Germany]
48 School of Earth Sciences [Columbus]
49 SATOC - Satellite Oceanographic Consultants Ltd
50 NWAFC - Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre
51 PROTEO - Processus et interactions de fine échelle océanique
52 School of Engineering [Callaghan]
53 DGFI-TUM - Deutsches Geodätisches Forschungsinstitut
54 SOCIB Balearic Islands Coastal Ocean Observing and Forecasting System
55 GFZ - German Research Centre for Geosciences - Helmholtz-Centre Potsdam
56 LOPS - Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale
57 MIO - Institut méditerranéen d'océanologie
58 DICAM - Department of Civil Chemical Environmental and Materials Engineering [Bologna]
59 OSPO - NOAA Office of Satellite and Product Operations
60 AOML - NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory
61 OSU - Oregon State University
62 IMT Atlantique - IMT Atlantique
63 IMT Atlantique - MEE - Département Mathematical and Electrical Engineering
64 Lab-STICC_OSE - Equipe Observations Signal & Environnement
65 UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia
66 Department of Geographical Sciences [College Park]
67 Institut für Geodäsie und Geoinformationstechnik
68 CIIMAR - Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research [Matosinhos, Portugal]
69 CIMA - Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera
70 Institut für Planetare Geodäsie, Lohrmann-Observatorium
71 UNMdP - Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata [Mar del Plata]
72 DFO - Fisheries and Oceans Canada
73 SPACE - LATMOS
74 EFML - Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory [Daejeon]
75 ENS Paris Saclay - Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay
76 LERMA (UMR_8112) - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique et Atmosphères
77 ABC - Austral, Boréal et Carbone
78 GEO - Group on Earth Observations
79 Kansas State University
80 UNC - University of North Carolina [Chapel Hill]
81 UTAS - University of Tasmania [Hobart, Australia]
82 RU - Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey [New Brunswick]
83 INSTAAR - Institute of Arctic Alpine Research [University of Colorado Boulder]
84 WPI - Water Problems Institute
85 PSU - Portland State University [Portland]
86 APL-UW - Applied Physics Laboratory [Seattle]

In 2018 we celebrated 25 years of development of radar altimetry, and the progress achieved by this methodology in the fields of global and coastal oceanography, hydrology, geodesy and cryospheric sciences. Many symbolic major events have celebrated these developments, e.g., in Venice, Italy, the 15th (2006) and 20th (2012) years of progress and more recently, in 2018, in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, 25 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry. On this latter occasion it was decided to collect contributions of scientists, engineers and managers involved in the worldwide altimetry community to depict the state of altimetry and propose recommendations for the altimetry of the future. This paper summarizes contributions and recommendations that were collected and provides guidance for future mission design, research activities, and sustainable operational radar altimetry data exploitation. Recommendations provided are fundamental for optimizing further scientific and operational advances of oceanographic observations by altimetry, including requirements for spatial and temporal resolution of altimetric measurements, their accuracy and continuity. There are also new challenges and new openings mentioned in the paper that are particularly crucial for observations at higher latitudes, for coastal oceanography, for cryospheric studies and for hydrology.The paper starts with a general introduction followed by a section on Earth System Science including Ocean Dynamics, Sea Level, the Coastal Ocean, Hydrology, the Cryosphere and Polar Oceans and the “Green” Ocean, extending the frontier from biogeochemistry to marine ecology. Applications are described in a subsequent section, which covers Operational Oceanography, Weather, Hurricane Wave and Wind Forecasting, Climate projection. Instruments’ development and satellite missions’ evolutions are described in a fourth section. A fifth section covers the key observations that altimeters provide and their potential complements, from other Earth observation measurements to in situ data. Section 6 identifies the data and methods and provides some accuracy and resolution requirements for the wet tropospheric correction, the orbit and other geodetic requirements, the Mean Sea Surface, Geoid and Mean Dynamic Topography, Calibration and Validation, data accuracy, data access and handling (including the DUACS system). Section 7 brings a transversal view on scales, integration, artificial intelligence, and capacity building (education and training). Section 8 reviews the programmatic issues followed by a conclusion.

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Earth Sciences; Oceanography

Saleh Abdalla, Abdolnabi Abdeh Kolahchi, Michaël Ablain, Susheel Adusumilli, Suchandra Aich Bhowmick, et al.. Altimetry for the future: Building on 25 years of progress. Advances in Space Research, 2021, 68 (2), pp.319-363. ⟨10.1016/j.asr.2021.01.022⟩. ⟨insu-03215002⟩