By succeeding TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, and OSTM/Jason-2, Jason-3 extends the high precision altimetry data record to support climate monitoring, operational oceanography and seasonal forecasting. Launched in January 17th 2016, Jason-3 is operated by the NOAA in partnership with the NASA, the CNES and EUMETSAT. Jason-3 has the same orbit than the current OSTM/Jason-2 mission, OSTM/Jason-2 will be moved to a new orbit in October (TBC) in order to improve the spatial resolution of gridded products. Note that the integration of Jason-3 in the Sea Level observations data leads to the deactivation of the current OSTM/Jason-2 mission. OSTM/Jason-2 will be reintroduced later when it will reach its interleaved orbit , through a new dataset named "j2n". On September 13, 2016 ( (please note that this date could be delayed), the following products are concerned:

• the along-track Absolute Dynamic Topography heights in Near-Real-Time (ADT-H): a new dataset is available (with the same nomenclature/format as other datasets, but with "j3" mission). Thus the OSTM/Jason-2 mission is deactivated (no more "j2" files delivered).

• the gridded products heights and currents in Near-Real-Time (MADT-H, MADT-UV, MSLA-UV): Jason-3 mission turns into the new reference mission and replaces Jason-2 mission in the merged maps.

Note that the global biases between OSTM/Jason-2 and Jason-3 are taken into account in order to minimize the impact of the change, but the East/West biases (mainly induced by orbit differences) will be corrected only in Delayed-Time (Reprocessed) production.