Project Summary

Project Description

The the “CryoSat ThEMatic PrOducts – SWATH Cryo-TEMPO” project aims to consolidate the research and development done during the CryoSat+ CryoTop / CryoTop evolution ESA STSE projects into two operational products:

  • Thematic Point Product
  • Thematic Gridded Product (EOLIS DEM)

The data provided by this project addresses the following specific objectives:

  • Target a wider community of scientific end–users, outside the usual altimetry expert groups (e.g. modellers, Climate/Operational services);
  • Be high level (~L2+/CEOS-ARD), user-friendly and simple, including no more than 6-7 parameters including uncertainty estimates;
  • Quickly evolve and reflect the most recent scientific outcomes, being generated alongside CryoSat’s core Payload Data Ground Segment (PDGS) products;
  • Be easily accessible from a user-friendly interface.

The project is split into 2 phases:

  • Phase1: Greenland & Antarctica (Going Live Q2 2020)
  • Phase2: Russian Arctic, Iceland, Svalbard, Canadian Arctic, Patagonia, Himalayas, Alaska (2021)

Thematic Point Product

The first key objective was to generate swath elevation from CryoSat’s entire SARin archive over the GrIS and AIS and to perform an uncertainty assessment and screening of high-quality elevation. This builds on the work performed in the CryoTop and CryoTop-Evolution projects:

Elevations across the ice-sheets is provided on a monthly basis.
 
In addition, the data contains a set of robust criteria to identify high-quality records and exclude poor quality data

Thematic Gridded Product

The second objective is to generate digital elevation models from the gridding of a months worth of CryoSat swath elevation. This task has not been performed in previous projects and requires new algorithm developments, testing and validation. The spatial resolution and extent has been selected based on these initial tests and may vary on a region per region basis as swath data quality, density and swath width is highly variable and a function of surface slope and surface conditions (i.e. scattering mechanisms).

Extent of the EOLIS DEMs over the SARIn zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Friendly User access

Data is converted from conventional orbit based data files, into an easily accessible gridded structure allowing the fast access of regions of interest for each month.

The data is structured as follows: ../y<YEAR>/m<MONTH>/cell_<X>_<Y>/ where X and Y are Polar Coordinates. A complimentary Shp file is available allowing easy selection of paths for download. More information can be found in the products page and in the product handbook.