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METHODS article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Ocean Observation
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1419132

Arctic and Southern Ocean polar sea level maps and along-tracks from multi-mission satellite altimetry from 2011 to 2021

Provisionally accepted
Pierre Veillard Pierre Veillard 1*Pierre Prandi Pierre Prandi 1Marie Isabelle Pujol Marie Isabelle Pujol 1*Jean-Alexis Daguzé Jean-Alexis Daguzé 1Fanny Piras Fanny Piras 1Gerald Dibarboure Gerald Dibarboure 2Yannice Faugère Yannice Faugère 2
  • 1 Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS), Toulouse, France
  • 2 Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), Paris, France

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Polar sea surface height observation by radar altimeters requires missions with high latitudes orbit and specific processing to observe the sea-ice covered region within fractures in the ice. Here, we combine sea surface height estimates from different radar satellites over the ice-free and the ice-covered polar oceans to create cross-calibrated along-tracks and gridded products over the Arctic Ocean (2011-2021) and the Southern Ocean (2013-2021). The sea surface height from our regional polar products is in great agreement with tide gauges and bottom pressure recorders at monthly timescales in seasonally to year-round ice-covered regions. Thanks to the use of several missions and the mapping strategy, our multi-mission products have a greater resolution than mono-mission products. Part of the sea level variability of the Arctic Ocean product is related to the Arctic Oscillation atmospheric circulation. At long-term, the Arctic altimetry sea level is coherent with in-situ steric height evolution in the Beaufort gyre and negative sea level trends over the 10 years period are observed in the East Siberian slope region that may be related to local freshwater decrease observed by other studies. Our regional polar sea level products are limited by current understanding of the sea-ice leads measurements and homogenization of these polar products with global sea level products needs to be tackled.

    Keywords: satellite altimetry, Arctic Ocean, Southern Ocean, sea level change, Arctic Oscillation

    Received: 17 Apr 2024; Accepted: 29 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Veillard, Prandi, Pujol, Daguzé, Piras, Dibarboure and Faugère. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Pierre Veillard, Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS), Toulouse, France
    Marie Isabelle Pujol, Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS), Toulouse, France

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