Category: News of the Saral mission

For the first time since Saral is in flight: maps of baskcatter and topography are plotted over the Antarctica ice sheet.

Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets are essential in the sea-level rise and climate understanding. Satellite altimetry is one of the powerful tools to study them. The Saral satellite, a joint-mission between Cnes and Isro, has been successfully launched the 25th of February 2013 and just ended its first cycle. AltiKa, the altimeter onboard has proven to be efficient and excellent results are yet observed over the Antarctica ice sheet as we see on the attached figures representing both the backscatter and the topography for the first time since Saral is in flight. <link http: www.aviso.oceanobs.com fileadmin images news saral saral_backscatter_antarctica_cycle1_ka.png _blank external-link-new-window><link http: www.aviso.oceanobs.com fileadmin images news saral saral_height_antarctica_cycle1_ka.png _blank external-link-new-window>

Maps of backscatter coefficient (in dB, left) and toppography (in m, right) over the Antarctica ice sheet. The measurements are provided by the AltiKa altimeter on the Saral satellite for its first cycle (cycle_001: 2013/03/14 - 2013/04/18). Credits Cnes/CLS, A.Michel

Saral succeeds amazingly in providing a continuity in good agreement with Envisat as the topography shows and supplies us with new informations through its innovative caracteristics, such as the backscatter. In the short term, we will analyse AltiKa data accurately in order to better explain the interaction between the snowpack and the radar wave, to expand the amount of observations we already have from ERS1/2 and Envisat and to measure height and volume variations. Thanks to Saral, Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets are surveyed, a crucial fact pointing out we will be enhancing the expertise in these both regions. 

Further information:

• <link http: www.aviso.oceanobs.com en news _top external-link-new-window>all Aviso news about Saral since its launch on 2013/02/25
• Missions: <link internal-link>Saral
• Image of the month:
  • June 2012: <link internal-link>Antarctica thinning seen by Envisat
  • Oct. 2010: <link internal-link>Envisat measures up Antarctica
  • Nov. 2004: <link internal-link>A dual-frequency view of Antarctica
• Applications: <link internal-link>Ice sheets