Comparative Analysis of Eddies in Open Ocean and Marginal Ice Zone Using SWOT and Sentinel-1 Data

The new Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, featuring unprecedented resolution and precision, represents a new era in satellite altimetry and exploration of ocean eddy dynamics. This paper provides a specific test case for the inter-comparison of eddy fields in the open ocean and the Marginal Ice Zone in the Fram Strait, utilizing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data and a complementary Level 3 product from the SWOT altimetry mission. We identified and matched 7 occurrences of open ocean eddies from both data sources. A crucial and anticipated finding is that the SSHA fields demonstrate clear capability in resolving small (up to 10 km) submesoscale eddies. The comparison of the SAR and backscattering coefficient from the SWOT unsmoothed fields for the Marginal Ice Zone region revealed a generally good agreement between both data types and can be used by the researchers as complementary data sources.