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- Title
The ESA Permanent Facility for Altimetry Calibration in Crete: Advanced Services and the Latest Cal/Val Results.
- Authors
Mertikas, Stelios P.; Donlon, Craig; Kokolakis, Costas; Piretzidis, Dimitrios; Cullen, Robert; Féménias, Pierre; Fornari, Marco; Frantzis, Xenophon; Tripolitsiotis, Achilles; Bouffard, Jérôme; Di Bella, Alessandro; Boy, François; Saunier, Jerome
- Abstract
Two microwave transponders have been operating in west Crete and Gavdos to calibrate international satellite radar altimeters at the Ku-band. One has been continuously operating for about 8 years at the CDN1 Cal/Val site in the mountains of Crete, and the other at the GVD1 Cal/Val site on Gavdos since 11 October 2021. This ground infrastructure is also supported at present by four sea-surface Cal/Val sites operating, some of them for over 20 years, while two additional such Cal/Val sites are under construction. This ground infrastructure is part of the European Space Agency Permanent Facility for Altimetry Calibration (PFAC), and as of 2015, it has been producing continuously a time series of range biases for Sentinel-3A, Sentinel-3B, Sentinel-6 MF, Jason-2, Jason-3, and CryoSat-2. This work presents a thorough examination of the transponder Cal/Val responses to understand and determine absolute biases for all satellite altimeters overflying this ground infrastructure. The latest calibration results for the Jason-3, Copernicus Sentinel-3A and -3B, Sentinel-6 MF, and CryoSat-2 radar altimeters are described based on four sea-surface and two transponder Cal/Val sites of the PFAC in west Crete, Greece. Absolute biases for Jason-3, Sentinel-6 MF, Sentinel-3A, Sentinel-3B, and CryoSat-2 are close to a few mm, determined using various techniques, infrastructure, and settings.
- Subjects
CRETE (Greece); GREECE; EUROPEAN Space Agency; ALTIMETRY; TRANSPONDERS; ALTIMETERS; TIME series analysis; FACILITIES
- Publication
Remote Sensing, 2024, Vol 16, Issue 2, p223
- ISSN
2072-4292
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3390/rs16020223