Topic: Sea Level Observations: Radar Altimetry and SWOT
Goal: Explore oceanographic data from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission – including calibration and geophysical corrections, ocean heights, and derived velocities - and validate against coastal tide gauge water level observations for applications to sea level rise coastal impacts.
Introduction: Global mean total sea level variations measured by satellite radar altimeters from 1993 to 2026 show an increase of 91.2 mm in global mean sea level since 1993. Coastal communities are now grappling with the regional expression of this mean height increase and preparing for flooding on a range of time scales. Historically, coastal sea level has been difficult to measure from space due to the large footprint of radar altimeters. The SWOT mission has opened a new door to both small scale ocean height features and coastal sea level which may be used to explore the range of dynamics impacting coastal sea level rise impacts.
Datasets:
- NASA/CNES SWOT Level 3 Low Rate Data
- NOAA Tide Gauge Data
- NOAA VDatum API
Scripts and Notebooks:
- SWOT_LR_L3_Data_Exploration.ipynb - Main notebook for exercises
Contact Scientist: Angelica Rodriguez (angelica.rodriguez@jpl.nasa.gov)
Project Server (CMDA): https://hub.jpl-cmda.org