News & Events

31 de diciembre de 2018

2009-2018 News Archive

Archive of Sea Level project news from 2009-2018

New paper from M. Passaro et al . "ALES+: Adapting a homogenous ocean retracker for satellite altimetry to sea ice leads, coastal and inland waters" has been recently published (4 May 2018)

Radar satellites supply the data used to map sea level and ocean currents. However, up until now the radar's "eyes" have been blind where the oceans are covered by ice. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now developed a new analysis method to solve this problem.

Further information

One-year Bridging Phase of the Sea Level project has started (19 April 2018)

The kick-off of the "Bridging phase" activities for the SL_CCI project occurred on 16 March 2018. Objectives of these activities are mainly to continue research and development activities in order to improve the sea level content at climate scales and provide recommendations to C3S.

Estimation of MSL altimetry uncertainties at global scale and in coastal areas and improvement of coastal sea level will be the two main scientific issues addressed this year.

Legeais et al.: "An improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative" is now published (12 Feb 2018)

Following the release of the full reprocessing (v2.0) of the sea level ECV, the description of the validation of this dataset is now available in the following publication:

Legeais, J.-F., Ablain, M., Zawadzki, L., Zuo, H., Johannessen, J. A., Scharffenberg, M. G., Fenoglio-Marc, L., Fernandes, M. J., Andersen, O. B., Rudenko, S., Cipollini, P., Quartly, G. D., Passaro, M., Cazenave, A., and Benveniste, J.: An improved and homogeneous altimeter sea level record from the ESA Climate Change Initiative, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 10, 281-301, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-281-2018, 2018.

Note that the description of how this product has been built is already available in the following publication:

Quartly, G. D., Legeais, J.-F., Ablain, M., Zawadzki, L., Fernandes, M. J., Rudenko, S., Carrère, L., García, P. N., Cipollini, P., Andersen, O. B., Poisson, J.-C., Mbajon Njiche, S., Cazenave, A., and Benveniste, J.: A new phase in the production of quality-controlled sea level data, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 9, 557-572, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-9-557-2017, 2017.

SL_cci v2.0 global mean sea level corrected for Topex-A drift and with AVISO completion (25 Nov 2017)

25 years of Multi-mission global sea level trend from altimetry (1993-2017) based on ESA’s Climate Change Initiative Project (SL_cci) from 1993 to 2015, extended (in red) by multi-mission data processed by CNES (AVISO) until mid-2017 and further extended by Jason-3 "near real time" data up to 22 November 2017 (NB: the Topex-A drift correction has been applied on the 6 first years). The curve has been corrected for the GIA effect. The global mean sea level has increased by about 3 mm/yr on average but the black curve (a quadratic function fitted to the data) shows clear acceleration over the recent years. The objective of the ESA Sea Level Climate Change Initiative project is to provide stable, long-term satellite-based Sea Level products for climate applications.

New Arctic and Antarctic weekly gridded sea level product is now available (24 July 2017)

A new DTU/TUM Arctic and Antarctic weekly gridded sea level product is now available. for more information and access to the product.

Sea Level CCI at the EGU General Assembly 2017 (31 Jan 2017)

The following abstracts have been submitted by the Sea Level CCI team for the next EGU General Assembly:

  • "A New CCI ECV Release (v2.0) to Accurately Measure the Sea Level Change from space (1993-2015)" by Jean-Francois Legeais, Jérôme Benveniste and the ESA Sea Level Climate Change Initiative Phase II Team submitted to CL4.10/CR1.13/OS1.12
  • A general presentation about the methodology and the impact of the GNSS on the corrections for coastal and inland-water altimetry. Submitted by J. Fernandes et al. to "High-precision GNSS: methods, open problems and Geoscience applications"
  • "Evaluation of Climate Variability of Sea Level from the ESA CCI products and ECMWF ocean reanalyses" by Hao Zuo and Magdalena Balmaseda submitted to CL4.10/CR1.13/OS1.12

Sea Level v2.0 ECV is now available (9 Dec 2016)

The Sea Level CCI team is pleased to announce the release of a full reprocessing of the Sea Level v2.0 ECV product. The monthly maps of sea level anomalies are now available over the 1993-2015 period. The ECV product also includes ocean indicators over the same period:

  • the temporal evolution of the global mean sea level
  • the map of the sea level trends
  • the map of the amplitude and phase of the annual signal of the sea level.

In addition, the Fundamental Climate Data Records (along-track values of sea level anomalies and altimeter standards) of all the altimeter missions used in the products have been computed in version v2.0 over 1993-2015.

Sea Level CCI newsletter (Edition #10) is now available (9 Dec 2018)

The tenth Sea Level CCI newsletter is now available for download. The main highlight in this new issue is the description of the level 2 altimeter standards that have been used to produce the v2.0 ECV. It also features a description of some results of comparisons between the ECV v2.0 with the previous v1.1 version. Other items in this edition include:

  • The ESA Sea Level Climate Change Initiative: Six Years of Successful Improvements
  • The Sea Level CCI consortium
  • Publications
  • Upcoming events

Sea Level CCI at the 2016 EUMETSAT Conference (2 Sept 2016)

The following presentation of the Sea Level CCI team has been submitted to the next EUMETSAT Conference: 'Accurately measuring sea level change from space: an ESA Climate Change Initiative for MSL closure budget studies' by Jean-Francois Legeais et al.

Sea Level CCI at the 2016 OSTST (8 August 2016)

The following presentations of the Sea Level CCI team have been submitted to the next Ocean Surface Topography Science Team Meeting in La Rochelle, France from 1-4 November 2016:

  • A New CCI ECV Release (v2.0) to accurately Measure the Sea Level Change (1993-2015)
    by Jean-Francois Legeais et al.
    Session: Science I: Current and past mean sea level observations.
  • The influence of assimilation of improved Sea Level data using the GECCO adjoint assimilation approach
    by Martin G. Scharffenberg, Armin Köhl, Detlef Stammer.
    Session: Quantifying Errors and Uncertainties in Altimetry data
  • Assessment of ITRF2014 for precise orbit determination of altimetry satellites
    by Rudenko S., Esselborn S., Schone T., Dettmering D., Neumayer K.-H.
  • Arctic Sea Level Change over the altimetry era and reconstructed back to 1950
    by Ole Baltazar Andersen, Marcello Passaro, Peter Svendsen. SC1_008
  • Sea Surface Height retrieval in the ice covered Arctic Ocean from waveform classification to regional sea level maps by Pierre Prandi et al.
  • Oral presentation in Session II: from large-scale oceanography to coastal and shelf processes

Sea Level CCI at the 41st COSPAR Scientific Assembly 2016 (4 July 2016)

As the next COSPAR in Istanbul from 30 July-7 August 2016 has been cancelled, the abstracts submitted by the Sea Level CCI team will no longer be presented.

Sea Level CCI at the Living Planet Symposium 2016 (6 May 2016)

At the Living Planet Symposium 2016 in Prage, Czech Republic, the Sea Level CCI team will present the following contributions to the conference:

  • Accurately measuring sea level change from space: an ESA Climate Change Initiative for MSL closure budget studies by Jean-Francois Legeais et al. (Oral Presentation)
  • Observing the ocean from space by Anny Cazenave (Keynote Talk)
  • Closure of the sea level budget using CCI and other data set by Anny Cazenave et al. (Oral Presentation)
  • Total land water storage change over 2003-2013 estimated from a global mass and sea level approach by Habib Dieng et al. (Poster)
  • Ensuring the continuity of sea level estimation between open ocean and sea ice regions in the Arctic using a new LRM retracker in leads by Poisson et al. (Oral Presentation)
  • Coastal CryoSat-2 SARand PLRM Altimetry in German Bight and West Baltic Sea by Fenoglio-Marc et al. (Poster)

Sea Level CCI newsletter (Edition #9) is now available (26 March 2016)

The ninth Sea Level CCI newsletter is now available for download. The main highlight in this new issue is the preparation of a new homogeneous and accurate Sea Level ECV. Other items in this edition include:

  • The Algorithm Selection Meeting and the reprocessed SL_cci ECV
  • The Sea Level CCI consortium
  • Publications
  • Upcoming events

New Figures for Sea Level V1.1 ECV extension (27 Jan 2016)

Updated figures for our recently released V1.1 ECV extension over 1993-2014 are available in our image gallery. Figures of global and regional altimeter Mean Sea Level trends over the 22-year period are available.

MARCDAT-III (15 March 2011)

The Third International Workshop on Advances in the Use of Historical Marine Climate DATA (MARCDAT-III) will take place in Frascatin, ESRIN, Italia from 2-6 May 2011.

The workshop will showcase and build on recent advances in marine climatology:

  • Evaluation, utilization and improvement of the over 300-year record of ICOADS (e.g. using satellite data)
  • Development of multi-decadal, homogeneous gridded datasets for climate applications
  • Characterisation of uncertainty and bias in marine observations and products

With the objective of recommending a 10-year action plan for improved integration and accessibility of climatological observations. See more details on ICOADS page.

Project Attendees:

Michael Ablain or Marie-Hélène Rio (CLS) - to give SLCCI presentation. 

  • Presentation Slides

Participation Details:

By invitation, but we welcome self-nominations from potential attendees who feel they would have a highly relevant contribution to make. Please contact Scott.D.Woodruff@noaa.gov

User Requirements Document Published (11 March 2011)

The first deliverable of the Sea Level CCI project is now publicly available on the project website.

European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2011 in Vienna (9.3.2011)

A session on the Sea Level topic, Global and regional sea level rise and variability, is presented on Friday 8 April 2011 organised with oral and poster presentations. C.Dufau (CLS) and/or other partners (DTU) will give SLCCI project presentation.

Sea Level CCI Newsletter #1 (Nov. 2010) published (9.11.2010)

The Sea Level CCI project team is happy to announce the release of its First newsletter.

Contents :

  • The sea level variable
  • Altimetry sea level calculation
  • Mean Sea Level Elevation
  • Error characterization
  • Sea Level CCI project overview
  • Status of the project

Essential Climate Variable Projects (11.11.2009)

ESA has the pleasure to inform you that the CCI invitation to tender was issued on EMITS on 11 November 2009 with closing date on 05 March 2010, at 13:00 hrs.