The Saral project team and some scientists involved in the analysis of Saral data have held a first verification meeting on August 27th-29th in Toulouse. See hereafter the main conclusions and the decisison to deliver the GDR to all users.

Please find hereafter the main conclusions of the first Saral Verification Workshop, which has been held on August 27-28-29th in Toulouse.

Synthesis 

The performances of the payload instruments and the quality of the results has to be underlined, especially just a few months after the launch.

• OGDR and IGDR products have been distributed to all Users from June 25th; GDR products are available to PIs since August 2^nd.
• Some algorithms are still to be tuned: neural network used for radiometer data ground processing, Sea State Bias computation, altimeter wind speed and ICE2 retracking.
• According to users presentations, the main message of this meeting is the easiness to use the data (thanks to the ground segment operationality and the expertise  of the users). The level of quality achieved by the products in terms of accuracy, data latency and availability  is such that the Saral/AltiKa data are now operationnaly integrated in several forecast systems (in Europe : CNES SALP, Météo France, Mercator, ECMWF, in India : ISRO/INCOIS, in Australia : CSIRO, in USA : NOAA, Navy).
• The catchword for the Saral/AltiKa data could be "ready to use". 

Disclaimers and foreseen evolutions

The GDR in V1are delivered to the PI since August 2nd, and their good quality has already been assessed. As a consequence, it has been decided to deliver the GDR_T ("T" for test) to all users (via AVISO ftp server) in the current version by September. Then the foreseen products evolutions V2 have been detailed by the project, and the level of priority has been discussed with the PIs. The V2 will be prepared by end 2013, to be available early 2014 and evaluated in frame of the second verification workshop (foreseen in April 2014). It could be relevant to hold the next Saral verification workshop around April 2014, possibly in India, mainly aiming at reviewing and assessing the quality of GDR data and discussing first scientific results. The 2014 OSTST will be in Germany and it is planned to have a joint dedicated Saral/AltiKa symposium.  See further information on

foreseen evolutions. CNES Saral project team,