Jason-3 Mission's objectives

Jason-3 mission's objectives are mostly the same than Jason-2, with an emphasis on:

  • data continuity for climate applications : Jason-3 should enable to reach the 30-year time which is the standard period for climate-relevant time series, and this with a continuous, intercalibrated dataset.
  • European program "Copernicus" is now in place, with its marine service CMEMS distributing operationally ocean data, altimetry in particular for operational applications and assimilation in ocean forecasting models such as Mercator Ocean.
  • To have quality data nearer to the coasts, and over lakes and rivers.

Expected applications are also Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2's :

  • ocean study,
  • climate study, seasonal forecasting (including El Niño and such phenomena),
  • wind speed and wave height measurements, in real-time for weather forecast models, and over the long term (climatologies) for studies and model improvements,
  • better knowledge of the geoid, in combination with geodetic satellites (Grace, Goce),
  • Tide models improvements,
  • ...