Jason-1: Assessment of the System Performances

On 7 December 2001, Jason-1 was successfully launched by a Boeing Delta II rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The Jason-1 satellite will maintain the high accuracy altimeter service provided since 1992 by TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P), ensuring the continuity in observing and monitoring the Ocean Dynamics (intraseasonal to interannual changes, mean sea level, tides, etc.). Despite one-fourth the mass and power, the Jason-1 system has been designed to have basically the same performance as T/P, measuring sea surface topography at a centimetric level. This new CNES/NASA mission also provides near real-time data for sea state and ocean forecast. The first two months of the Jason-1 mission have been dedicated to the assessment of the overall system. The goals of this assessment phase were:

1. To assess the behavior of the spacecraft at the platform and payload levels (Jason-1 being the first program to call on the PROTEUS versatile multimission platform for Low and Medium Earth Orbit Missions developed in partnership between Alcatel Space and CNES);

2. To verify that platform performance requirements are met with respect to Jason-1 requirements;

3. To verify that payload instruments performance requirements evaluated at instrument level are met;

4. To assess the performance of the Jason-1 Ground System.

This article will display the main outputs of the assessment of the system. It will demonstrate that all the elements of the onboard and ground systems are within the specifications. Provision of data to the Jason-1 Science Working Team started at the end of March 2002. This is the goal of a six-month phase after closure of the initial assessment phase to derive the error budget of the system in terms of altimetry user products.     

Observations of the Labrador Sea eddy field

This paper is an observational study of small-scale coherent eddies in the Labrador Sea, a region of dense water formation thought to be of considerable importance to the North Atlantic overturning circulation. Numerical studies of deep convection emphasize coherent eddies as a mechanism for the lateral transport of heat, yet their small size has hindered observational progress. A large part of this paper is therefore devoted to developing new methods for identifying and describing coherent eddies in two observational platforms, current meter moorings and satellite altimetry. Details of the current and water mass structure of individual eddy events, as they are swept past by an advecting flow, can then be extracted from the mooring data. A transition is seen during mid-1997, with long-lived boundary current eddies dominating the central Labrador Sea year-round after this time, and convectively formed eddies similar to those seen in deep convection modeling studies apparent prior to this time. The TOPEX / Poseidon altimeter covers the Labrador Sea with a loose “net” of observations, through which coherent eddies can seem to appear and disappear. By concentrating on locating and describing anomalous events in individual altimeter tracks, a portrait of the spatial and temporal variability of the underlying eddy field can be constructed. The altimeter results reveal an annual “pulsation” of energy and of coherent eddies originating during the late fall at a particular location in the boundary current, pinpointing the time and place of the boundary current-type eddy formation. The interannual variability seen at the mooring is reproduced, but the mooring site is found to be within a localized region of greatly enhanced eddy activity. Notably lacking in both the annual cycle and interannual variability is a clear relationship between the eddies or eddy energy and the intensity of wintertime cooling. These eddy observations, as well as hydrographic evidence, suggest an active role for boundary current dynamics in shaping the energetics and water mass properties of the interior region.     

Comparison of TOPEX/POSEIDON Altimeter Derived Wind Speed and Wave Parameters with Ocean Buoy Data in the North Indian Ocean

Results of comparison exercises carried out between the state-of-the-art TOPEX/POSEIDON altimeter-derived ocean surface wind speed and ocean wave parameters (significant wave height and wave period) and those measured by a set of ocean data buoys in the North Indian Ocean are presented in this article. Altimeter-derived significant wave height values exhibited rms deviation as small as ±0.3 m, and surface wind speed of ±1.6 m/s. These results are found consistent with those found for the Pacific Ocean. For estimation of ocean wave period, the spectral moments-based semiempirical approach, earlier applied on GEOSAT data, was extended to TOPEX/POSEIDON. For this purpose, distributions of first four years of TOPEX/POSEIDON altimeter data and climatology over the North Indian Ocean were analyzed and a new set of coefficients generated for estimation of wave period. It is shown that wave periods thus estimated from TOPEX/POSEIDON data (for the subsequent two years), when compared with independent data set of ocean data buoys deployed in the North Indian Ocean, exhibit improved accuracy (rms ~ ±1.4 nos) over those determined earlier with GEOSAT data.     

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太平洋东南海域表层地转流场的季节及年际变化特征

利用1992~2001年Topex/Poseidon卫星高度计遥感资料分析了太平洋东南海域(5°~55°S,70°~120°W)表层流场的季节及年际变化特征。结果表明,南赤道流的季节变化主要体现在流速上,而秘鲁海流和西风漂流主要体现在流轴位置的移动上。表层流场的年际变化受El Nino影响,在El Nino期间,南赤道流和秘鲁海流均发生流向偏转现象,大部分海区流场被削弱(除低纬度海区外),而在其后的1998年La Nina期间,流场则重新被加强,西风漂流无明显的年际变化。     

WWATCH模式模拟南海海浪场的结果分析

利用美国NOAA/NCEP环境模拟中心海洋模拟小组近年新开发的一个准业务化的海浪数值模式WAVEWATCH Ⅲ(以下简称WWATCH),以每天4次的NOAA/NCEP再分析风场资料为输入,模拟了1996年的南海海域的海面风浪场,通过分析TOPEX/Poseidon(以下简称T/P)高度计的上升和下降轨道在南海海域的交叉点位置处的风、浪观测资料与NCEP风场和WWATCH模式模拟的有效波高大小,可以看出,NCEP风场基本与T/P高度计的风速观测结果一致,相应的模式模拟的有效波高也基本与卫星高度计的有效波高观测结果相一致,但从空间上看,在计算区域中心附近海域的结果一致性较好,靠近计算边界附近海域的结果相对较差,但这种因边界而影响模拟结果的范围很有限;从时间上看,冬季风期间的结果一致性较好,而夏季风期间的结果偏小的趋势明显,并且这种偏小主要出现在夏季风期间的极小风速值附近。     

中国近海TOPEX/Poseidon卫星测高海平面变化的CPCA分析

用复主成分分析方法，对中国近海TOPEX／Poseidon卫星6年的测高的海平面变化资料进行了分析，给出了中国南海，黄海和东海的海平面变化的空间和时间分布特重征，利用小波方法分析了主要主成分时间变化序列的时－频特征，分析结果表明，主要主成分的空间分布特征与海洋环充相对应，南海，黄海和东海的海平面变化存在显著的年际和2个月的非稳态振荡信号，南海具有较明显的半年周期信号，而黄海和东海的半年周期信号不明显。     

全球有效波高和风速的时空变化及相关关系研究

The climatology of significant wave height（SWH） and sea surface wind speed are matters of concern in the fields of both meteorology and oceanography because they are very important parameters for planning offshore structures and ship routings. The TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter, which collected data for about 13 years from September 1992 to October 2005, has measured SWHs and surface wind speeds over most of the world＇s oceans. In this paper, a study of the global spatiotemporal distributions and variations of SWH and sea surface wind speed was conducted using the TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter data set. The range and characteristics of the variations were analyzed quantitatively for the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. Areas of rough waves and strong sea surface winds were localized precisely, and the correlation between SWH and sea surface wind speed analyzed.     

基于TOPEX/Poseidon卫星数据的江河流量测算

TOPEX／Poseidon卫星的原始目的是测量海面高度变化信息,为海洋监测服务。作者通过假设基准面的方法,将由TOPEX／Poseidon卫星数据估算的下垫面水位相对变化信息转化为”水位”系列并建立了由TOPEX／Poseidon得出的“水位”与相邻水文站实测流量间的相关关系,进而实现了由TOPEX／Poseidon卫星数据估算河道流量的目的。利用1998～1999年TOPEX／Poseidon在长江下游大通附近的过境数据和对应年份大通水文站实测流量数据,验证了本方法的可行性。研究结果表明：在长江下游河道地区,由TOPEX／Poseidon卫星数据可定量估算出山河流流量信息。     

TOPEX/Poseidon卫星监测博斯腾湖水位变化及其与NINO3 SST的相关性分析

利用TOPEX/Poseidon(T/P)卫星10年（1992~2002）监测博斯腾湖水位变化的GDR数据,经过数据的地球物理改正、编辑、约化和滤波后,分别采用小波分析和傅里叶分析得到了博斯腾湖水位变化的平均周期为1034d,363d,182d和47d。季节性变化是湖泊水位变化的主项,利用最小二乘法得到了周年振幅为0.7196m,半年振幅为0.5322m,因此季节性变化的主周期是周年,次周期是半年。博斯腾湖水位变化变化趋势为0.2012m/a,说明在全球气候变暖趋势下,博斯腾湖水位在升高。由博斯腾湖月水位变化的时间序列与NINO3 SST进行相关性分析,发现在NINO3 SST 发生6个月后,博斯腾湖月水位变化序列与NINO3 SST数据相关性最大(-0.2784),表明厄尔尼诺事件对我国西部气候影响的具有一定的滞后性。