Sentinel-3 Altimetry Thematic Products for Hydrology, Sea Ice and Land Ice
This paper presents the Copernicus Sentinel-3 level-2 altimetry Hydro-Cryo "Thematic Products", operationally generated by ESA since September 2023. In comparison to previous product versions, the level-2 processing is now performed through three independent chains, generating three families of "Thematic Products", for measurements acquired over hydrological, sea ice and land ice areas, respectively. Prior to the operational deployment, a full mission reprocessing was achieved with the thematic processors, providing a complete and harmonised dataset to the users. In this paper, the new architecture of the ground segment processing is presented, along with the major algorithmic developments. The main data content of the Thematic Products is also described, to indicate the key product variables for the end users. The Thematic Products have been evaluated by the Sentinel-3 Mission Performance Cluster (MPC) experts. The major results and outcomes are presented, showing the significant performance improvement achieved in comparison to previous processing versions.
Authors
- Nicolas Taburet (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-6260-3402)
- Karina Nielsen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0035-1869)
- Sara Fleury (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3751-1387)
- Julien Renou
- Sebastian B. Simonsen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9569-1294)
- Stine Kildegaard Rose (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4902-9093)
- Pierre Féménias (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-2011-5660)
- Jérémie Aublanc (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3090-8093)
- Fanny Piras (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2049-9120)
- Stefan Hendricks (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1412-3146)
- Filomena Catapano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2802-3920)
- Marco Restano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0318-041X)
- Giovanni D'Apice
- Anouk Chamayou
Institutions
- Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (DE)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (FR)
- Université Fédérale de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées (FR)
- Collecte Localisation Satellites (France) (FR)
- European Space Research Institute (IT)
- Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR)
- Technical University of Denmark (DK)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Scientific Data
- Published
- 2025-04-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04956-3
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- Arctic and Antarctic ice dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 6.50
Funders
- European Space Agency