Improved threshold retracker for satellite altimeter waveform retracking over coastal sea

Abstract

Data quality is a key factor for the application of satellite altimetry to geodesy and oceanography. Accuracy of altimetry is limited in the coastal area because the altimeter waveforms are seriously contaminated by topography and environmental pollution. So waveform retracking is needed to compute the range correction of geophysical data records (GDRs) for better accuracy. In this paper, a new waveform retracker named the improved threshold retracker (ITR) is put forward. The retracker first builds sub-waveforms based on leading edges detected in a waveform, then determines the middle point of each leading edge to compute the retracking range correction, finally calculates the referenced sea surface heights according to the geoid undulation from a local geopotential model and tide heights from an ocean tide model, and compares it with all retracking ranges to determine the best one. As a test, altimeter waveforms of Geosat/GM are retracked around the Taiwan coastal area. The result shows that accuracy of ITR method is two times better than that of the beta-5-parameter function-fitting method and threshold method, and three times better than that of GDRs. ITR can efficiently improve the altimetry accuracy of the coastal sea area.