Its microwave radars measure the distance to the sea surface with a precision of 2 cm.
Satellite radar altimeter accuracy.
A radar altimeter ra radio altimeter ralt electronic altimeter or reflection altimeter measures altitude above the terrain presently beneath an aircraft or spacecraft by timing how long it takes a beam of radio waves to travel to ground reflect and return to the craft.
Abstract the unprecedented accuracy of elevations retrieved from the ice cloud and land elevation satellite icesat laser altimeter is investigated and used to characterize the range errors in the environmental satellite envisat and european remote sensing 2 satellite ers 2 radar altimeters over the continental ice sheets.
A series of satellite missions that started with topex poseidon t p in 1992 and continued with jason 1 2001 2013 jason 2 2008 2019 and jason 3 2016 present estimate.
Satellite radar altimeters measure the ocean surface height sea level by measuring the time it takes a radar pulse to make a round trip from the satellite to the sea surface and back.
The poseidon 3 altimeter emits pulses at two frequencies 13 6 and 5 3 ghz to measure the distance from the satellite to the surface range.
Free electrons in the atmosphere can delay the signal s return affecting the measurement accuracy.
Satellite altimeter radar measurements can be combined with precisely known spacecraft orbits to measure sea level on a global basis with unprecedented accuracy.
The delay is directly related to the radar frequency so the difference between the two measurements can.
Bathymetry is measurement of the depth of the ocean.
A satellite radar altimeter is a nadir looking radar with very high range resolution which measures the ocean surface topography with an accuracy in the order of few centimeters.
Launched in 1992 as a joint mission of the american and french space agencies and still operating as of 2001 t p is the most accurate altimeter flown to date.
Additionally analysis of the echo amplitude and shape can extract information about the wind speed and wave height respectively.
