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Using the SAR Mode from CryoSat-2 to Improve Satellite Derived Gravity near the Coast
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 77th EAGE Conference and Exhibition 2015, Jun 2015, Volume 2015, cp-451-00437
Abstract
Gravity derived from satellite radar altimeter data has been used extensively in hydrocarbon exploration and geological mapping. In this presentation we investigate if we can improve coverage in coastal areas, by using the synthetic aperture mode (SAR) from CryoSat-2. We directly compare two co-linear satellite tracks off the coast of Central Sulawesi, where the satellite was in low-resolution (LRM) mode one year and SAR mode another year. We identify peaky waveforms in the LRM mode that have been contaminated by land based reflections. These land based reflections adversely affect the re-tracking of the waveform, and we were only able to reliably obtain sea-surface heights approximately 5 km from the coast. When in the SAR mode, contaminations from land based reflections only appear when the nadir point is very close to the coast, and we were able to reliably obtain sea-surface heights up to 1 km from the coast. In areas where the CryoSat-2 satellite is in SAR mode, this improved coverage should lead to better resolution in satellite derived gravity near the coast.