NOAA / NESDIS / STAR Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry banner
 
National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration website NOAA Center for Satellite Applications and Research website

Near Real-time Altimetry

Jason Near-real Time Altimetry Reports

NRT report coverThe Operational Geophysical Data Record (OGDR) is a real-time product developed for the Jason series of altimetry missions. The OGDR is the lowest latency product delivered to operational users, with the oldest data in each product having an age of only three to five hours. This product takes advantage of the DORIS navigator and on-board processing capabilities to provide geophysical data in near real-time. The primary variables in the OGDR are: time; location; significant wave height; wind speed and sea surface height anomaly, which is derived from the onboard DORIS/DIODE orbit. The low latency of the product is driven by the needs of marine meteorology applications. The primary purpose is to provide near real-time (NRT) wind and wave measurements to meteorological organisations carrying out nowcasting and operational wave forecasting. However, the OGDR also provides sea surface height anomalies for operational ocean applications such as hurricane intensity forecasting. The OGDR is processed at both the EUMETSAT and NOAA ground centers, such that both agencies share the complete data set.

Jason-3 completed its third year of operations in January 2019. In the report, plots of five primary measurements are analyzed cycle-by-cycle, demonstrating a very high level of quality.

NOAA’s role in Jason-3 includes data production and quality monitoring for the NRT data generated by both NOAA and EUMETSAT. The NOAA annual QA reports provide a summary of anomalies, data outages, and overall data quality for each year. Jason-3 continues the 25+ year global sea level climate data record begun by TOPEX, Jason-1, and Jason-2, which will be continued by the NASA/ESA/NOAA/EUMETSAT led Jason-CS missions beginning in 2020.

Jason-3 Quality Reports

Jason-2 Quality Reports