6th Coastal Altimetry Workshop - Lake Garda 2012

A short summary of the Workshop is available at the bottom and has been published in EOS, Trans. AGU

Final Programme with links to presentations and posters

		Day 1, Thursday 20 September 2012
08:00	08:40	Registration
08:40	08:40	Opening Session	Chairs:	Jérôme Benveniste (ESA/ESRIN), Paolo Cipollini (NOC)
08:40	09:10	Welcome & Introduction	Jérôme Benveniste and Paolo Cipollini
		Session 1 : The New Coastal Altimetry Data	Chairs:	Jessica Hausman (JPL), Martín Saraceno (Univ. Buenos Aires)
09:10	09:30	CTOH Studies on Regional Altimetry in 2011/2012	Florence Birol	CTOH/OMP, France
09:30	09:50	Level-3 Coastal Sea Level Anomalies from PISTACH Products	Claire Dufau	CLS, France
09:50	10:10	Coastal Altimetry: Evolution of Measurement and Retracking Problems when Switching from Conventional (Ku, Ka) to SAR Altimetry	Pierre Thibaut	CLS, France
10:10	10:20	Discussion
10:20	10:50	Coffee Break
10:50	10:50	Session 2 : Applications of Coastal Altimetry	Chairs:	Joana Fernandes (Univ. Porto), John Wilkin (Rutgers Univ.), Soma Yenamandra (NIO)
10:50	11:10	Sub-Mesoscale Circulation Features off Perth, WA, as Seen by HF Radar, Altimetry and Imagery	David Griffin	CSIRO, Australia
11:10	11:30	Comparing In Situ Current Data with Current Anomalies Derived from the PISTACH Products: the Agulhas Current	Mathilde Cancet	NOVELTIS, France
11:30	11:50	Satellite Altimetry of Inland Water Bodies in Turkmenistan	Andrey G.Kostianoy	P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russia
11:50	12:10	Coastal and Arctic Marine Gravity from Cryosat and Jason-1 Geodetic Mission Altimetry	Ole Baltazar Andersen	DTU Space, National Space Institute, Denmark
12:10	12:30	Observations of Storm Surges by Satellite Altimetry: Hurricane Igor off Newfoundland	Guoqi Han	Fisheries and Oceans, Canada
12:30	12:50	Estimation of Extreme Sea Levels from Altimetry and Tide Gauges at the Coast	Xiaoli Deng	The University of Newcastle, Australia
12:50	13:10	Discussion
13:10	14:40	Lunch
14:40	14:40	Session 3: Synergy with Models	Chairs:	Kaoru Ichikawa (Kyushu Univ.), Villy Kourafalou (Univ. Miami)
14:40	15:00	Invited Talk: Contributions of Coastal Altimetry to the GODAE/OceanView Coastal and Shelf Seas activities	Villy Kourafalou	RSMAS, University of Miami, United States
15:00	15:20	SSH Variability Along the US West Coast in Winter	Alexander Kurapov	CEOAS, Oregon State University, USA
15:20	15:40	Coastal Mean Dynamic Topography Computed Using ROMS Variational Assimilation of Long-Term Mean Observed Currents and Hydrography	John Wilkin	Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA
15:40	16:00	State Estimates and Forecasts in the Gulf of Mexico	Ganesh Gopalakrishnan	Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA
16:00	16:10	Discussion
16:10	16:40	Coffee break
16:40	16:40	Session 4: Corrections	Chairs:	Ole Andersen (DTU), Lifeng Bao (Chinese Acad. Sciences)
16:40	17:00	An inter-Comparison Between Algorithms for Wet Path Delay Retrieval in the Coastal Regions	M. Joana Fernandes	Univ. Porto, Fac. Ciências & CIMAR LA, CIIMAR-UP, Portugal
17:00	17:20	A Specific Coastal Wet Tropospheric Correction for the Envisat RA2 Altimeter	Estelle Obligis	CLS, France
17:20	17:40	Comparison of Recent Ocean Tide Models in the China Seas (withdrawn)	Li Dawei	Wuhan University, China
17:40	17:50	Discussion
17:50	20:00	Poster Session + Cocktail

		Day 2, Friday 21 September 2012
08:30	08:30	Session 5: LRM Retracking	Chairs:	Xiaoli Deng (Univ. Newcastle), Luciana Fenoglio-Marc (TU Darmstadt)
08:30	08:50	Assessing the Transition from Open-Ocean to Coastal Retracking Algorithms	Paolo Cipollini	National Oceanography Centre, UK
08:50	09:10	The Coastal Waveform Retracking Using Fuzzy Expert System Approach	Nurul Idris	The University of Newcastle, Australia
09:10	09:30	Adaptive Retracking of Jason-1 Altimetry Data for Inland Waters on the Example of the Volga Reservoirs	Yuliya Troitskaya	Institute of Applied Physics RAS, Russian Federation
09:30	09:50	Improved Retrieval of Altimetry Heights in Coastal and Sea Ice-Covered Region via Waveform Modification and Retracking	Kuo-Hsin Tseng	Ohio State University, USA
09:50	10:10	Using HF Radar Coastal Currents to Correct Satellite Altimetry	Carolyn Roesler	University of Colorado, USA
10:10	10:20	Discussion
10:20	10:50	Coffee break
10:50	10:50	Session 6: Waveform Analysis and SAR Retracking	Chairs:	Jesus Gómez-Enri (Univ. Cadiz), Walter Smith (NOAA)
10:50	11:10	Pulse-Pair (Doppler) Processing of Envisat Individual Echoes	Ron Abileah	jOmegak, USA
11:10	11:30	Echo to Echo Correlation and Time Alignment in CryoSat FBR SAR Data: Implication for Range and SWH from Coastal SAR Data	Walter H F Smith	NOAA, USA
11:30	11:50	Echo Contamination in SAR Mode in Coastal Zone and In Calm Waters	Salvatore Dinardo	SERCO/ESRIN, Italy
11:50	12:10	CryoSat-2 SAR Waveform Retracking Over the Ocean: Does Multilooking Distort the Leading Edge?	David Sandwell	Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA
12:10	12:30	Cryosat Processing Prototype, LRM and SAR processing on CNES side	François Boy	CNES, France
12:30	12:40	Discussion
12:40	14:00	Lunch
14:00	14:00	Session 7: CAL/VAL	Chairs:	Florence Birol (CTOH/OMP), Guoqi Han (Fisheries and Oceans)
14:00	14:20	Altimetry and Bathymetry Trends Around the Coastal Zone of Gavdos Permanent Cal/Val Facility	Stelios Mertikas	Technical University of Crete, Greece
14:20	14:40	A Study on the Conformance of Altimetry and In-Situ Sea Surface Data near Coast in the German Bight	Luciana Fenoglio-Marc	Technical University Darmstadt, Germany
14:40	15:00	Calibration and Validation of Combined Conventional and Reduced SAR Mode Data Over Oceans and in the Coastal Regime	Remko Scharroo	Altimetrics LLC, NOAA, USA
15:00	15:10	Discussion
15:10	15:10	Session 8: Future Data and Missions	Chairs:	David Griffin (CSIRO), Andrey Kostianoy (P.P. Shirshov Inst.)
15:10	15:30	The Future of PISTACH for 2013-2015	Emilie Bronner	CNES, France
15:30	15:50	The Surface Water / Ocean Topography Mission (1): Capabilities for Coastal Oceanography	Philip Callahan	Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA
15:50	16:10	Current Status of the Japanese Altimetry Mission	Akihisa Uematsu	Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa), Japan
16:10	16:30	The Sentinel-3 Mission	Craig Donlon	ESA/ESTEC
16:30	17:00	Coffee Break
17:00	18:30	Summary from Session Chairs, Discussion, Recommendations, Roadmap and Conclusions

Poster Session + Cocktail - Scheduled on Thursday, 17:50 to 20:00
FES 2012: A New Tidal Model Taking Advantage of Nearly 20 Years of Altimetry Measurements	Carrere, Loren	CLS,France
Continental Shelf Dynamics from Coastal Altimetry in the Bay of Biscay	Charria, Guillaume	IFREMER, France
The Use of Coastal Altimetry to Support Storm Surge Studies in Project eSurge	Cipollini, Paolo	National Oceanography Centre, UK
Cryosat Plus For Oceans - User Consultation	Cotton, David	SatOC, UK
Retracking of Altimeter Waveforms over the Prince William Sound	Deng,Xiaoli	The University of Newcastle, Australia
The GMES Sentinel-3 Mission	Donlon, Craig	ESA/ESTEC
Sentinel-3: operational coastal altimetry	Donlon, Craig	ESA/ESTEC
Regional Assessment of Altimetry Products in the NW Mediterranean : Comparisons to In-Situ Data and Model Outputs.	Dussurget, Renaud	IFREMER, France
Characterizing Spatiotemporal Variability in Altimeter-Derived Ocean Currents on the Coastal NW Atlantic Shelf	Feng, Hui	University of New Hampshire, UK
Coastal Radar Altimetry: What Can we Learn from the Costa Concordia Accident?	Gomez-Enri, Jesus	University of Cadiz, Spain
Comparison of Altimetric Datasets Near the US West Coast	Hausman, Jessica	JPL/Caltech, USA
Performance Evaluation of Traditional and Improved Waveform Retrackers for Processing Cryosat2 Data.	Jain, Maulik	DTU Space/National Space Institute, Denmark
Flood Wave Propagation Model of the Caspian Sea Based on Satellite Altimetry Data	Lebedev, Sergey	Geophysical Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federal
Interannual Variability of the Black Sea Level basing on the Radar Altimetry	Lebedev, Sergey	Geophysical Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federal
Trajectory of Giant Jellyfish by Satellite Altimetry Data	Morimoto, Akihiko	Nagoya University, Japan
Validation of the Sea Level Simulated by MRI.COM-JPN, a Japan Coastal Ocean Model	Ogawa, Koji	Meteorological Research Institute, Japan
Small Scale Storm Variability and Satellite Altimeter Data	Reale, Ferdinando	CUGRI, Italy
Evaluation Of CTOH New Along-track Tidal Constants Database For Dealiasing Coastal Altimetry Over The North-West European Continental Shelf.	Roblou, Laurent	CNRS/LEGOS, France
Seasonal Sea Level Anomaly Patterns over Argentine Continental Shelf	Ruiz Etcheverry, Laura	DCAO/CIMA, Argentina
Towards Assimilation of Satellite Altimetry Products Into a Storm-Surge Model Ensemble Along the Argentine Coast	Saraceno, Martin	CIMA/CONICET-UBA, Argentina
On the Accuracy of Satellite Altimetry Data over Continental Shelves: a Case study in Southeastern South America	Saraceno, Martin	CIMA/CONICET-UBA, Argentina
Classifying Radar-Echos of Envisat Altimeter Data for an Optimized Retracking	Schwatke, Christian	DGFI, Germany
A 20-Year Satellite Climatology of Ocean Circulation in the Northern Indian Ocean	Strub, Ted	Oregon State University, USA
Examples of Pulse-Pair (Doppler) Processing of Envisat Individual Echoes in Coastal and Inland Waters	Vignudelli, Stefano	CNR, Italy
A Multi-Peak Waveform Retracker for Coastal Altimetry	West, Luke	National Oceanography Centre, UK

Summary of the Workshop:

6th Coastal Altimetry Workshop
Riva del Garda, Italy
20-21 September 2012

The scientific community involved in the research and development of applications of satellite altimetry in the coastal zone met for the 6th Coastal Altimetry Workshop. Research in coastal altimetry is going through exciting times: experimental datasets for the coastal zone are now available, such as those from the French PISTACH project for the Jason-2 satellite and from the European Space Agency (ESA)-funded COASTALT project for the Envisat satellite, and many diverse applications were shown at the workshop. These range from observing coastal currents to monitoring river and lake levels, ice margins, and storm surges to gravity mapping in coastal zones.

It was apparent from the workshop that there has been a gear shift in the analysis of echoes in the coastal zone, in the geophysical corrections (several new correction techniques having been proposed in the past few years for the wet tropospheric delay), and in the integration of coastal altimetry in the observing and forecasting systems. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) (delay-Doppler) altimetry, on board Cryosat-2 and planned for the operational Global Monitoring for Environment and Security mission Sentinel-3, is now revolutionizing the field, and many talks dealt with applying this new technique, exploiting the amplitude and phase of the very high repeat frequency radar echoes.

There are still challenges to the processing, such as waveform building and retracking and correction of the sea state bias, but the quality of the data that are being produced by ESA, the French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is extremely promising, and initiatives like ESA’s SAR Altimetry Mode Studies and Applications (SAMOSA) study on the improvement in precision with respect to conventional altimetry have confirmed that the choice of a SAR altimeter for Sentinel-3 is a good one. Other challenges are the integration with models—on which there were several talks and posters—and the ever-crucial need for the calibration and validation of the reprocessed data. Future missions, such as AltiKa and 2D altimeters, were also illustrated.

The workshop issued some recommendations . Noteworthy is the request to use an interleaved mode, using both pulse-limited and SAR, over the entire globe for the planned Jason-CS mission, and to maximize the use of SAR acquisition area over the oceans for the Sentinel-3 mission.

The Coastal Altimetry Workshop, with 88 participants from 25 countries, 32 talks, and 24 posters, was a strong, lively, passionate community review of science and applications that continued the success of previous editions and confirmed that coastal altimetry is truly emerging as the new frontier of altimetry. These messages were fully taken up by the wider altimetry community gathered in Venice for the “20 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry” symposium, Argo Workshop, and Ocean Surface Topography Science Team (OSTST) meeting the following week, where coastal altimetry had a dedicated session, a dedicated keynote talk in the opening plenary session, a workshop report in the OSTST splinters’ session, and a good amount of mention in the roundtable on future observational requirements.