the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Blending 2D topography images from SWOT into the altimeter constellation with the Level-3 multi-mission DUACS system
Abstract. The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission delivers unprecedented swath altimetry products. Despite SWOT’s 2D coverage and precision, its Level-2 products suffer from the same limitations as their counterparts from nadir altimetry missions. Level-2 products are designed in a standalone ground-segment to meet the mission’s primary science objectives. In contrast, some research domains and applications require consistent multi-mission observations such as the Level-3 products provided by the Data Unification and Altimeter Combination System (DUACS) for almost 3 decades, and with 20 different satellites. In this paper, we describe how we extended the Level-3 algorithms to handle SWOT’s unique swath-altimeter data. We also illustrate and discuss the benefits, relevance, and limitations of Level-3 swath-altimeter products for various research domains.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-1501', Tom Farrar, 04 Jul 2024
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Review of "Blending 2D topography images from SWOT into the altimeter constellation with the Level-3 multi-mission DUACS system," a manuscript submitted to Ocean Science by Dibarboure et al
This paper describes a Level-3 SWOT data product that is derived from the SWOT Level-2 LR (either "low rate" or "low resolution") KaRIn data product and from the Level-2 nadir altimeter data product. The L3 product offers improved, state-of-the-art corrections that are not available with the L2 products. In addition to describing the new L3 product, the paper also provides a helpful introduction to the SWOT data with a discussion of the features and issues of the SWOT KaRIn data. This is an excellent paper-- clear, precise and full of relevant information. I have read many SWOT documents, and this one will be the first one I recommend to new users of SWOT ocean data products. I see no major problems with the paper, and I recommend that it be published after minor revisions. Both the paper describing the data product and the data product itself are important contributions to oceanography.I have only minor comments, listed in no special order below. (I make several exceedingly minor wording suggestions to which the authors need not respond.)
1. The abstract does not specify that this paper addresses LR or ocean data.
2. The paper says LR means "low resolution". SWOT project documentation is inconsistent on this point and sometimes says it means "low rate". (No action requested.)
3. Line 174: I suggest "tide models" instead of "tides models".
4. Lines 229-230: suggest replacing "images, which are perfectly fine" with "good data".
5. Line 244: is a comma missing after eclipses?
Line 292: Text refers to the tropical Pacific Ocean, but 41S is not in the tropics. It should say subtropical South Pacific.
6. Line 329: suggest adding "that" between "highlights" and "it is essential"
7. Line 339: no comma needed after users
8. Lines 354 and 357: The meaning of "ground segment" may not be obvious to many users. I think this refers to mission ground processing
9. Line 511: the figure does not really show propagation of El Nino, in the sense of a signal moving from one place to another. It just shows a change, which may be associated with El Nino or some other thing that changed during the sampling period.
10. Lines 514-522: Thank you! This explanation is helpful!
11. Figure 15: While figures are well labeled with lat/lon, it would be nice to state the geographic regions in the figure captions. This would just help the reader know the context.
12. Lines 582-583: "4 eddies in the SWOT scene"--> Is this referring to the Kuroshio case? I don't see four eddies in the SWOT scene.
13. Line 594: ...larger scales ARE not significantly degraded.
14. Lines 616-619: Something seems wrong, or I am confused about the labels or what is being said. I think these should say S3B/SWOT-nadir instead of S3B crossovers and S3B/KaRIn instead of KaRIn crossovers.
15. Lines 634-636: It isn't obvious how this conclusion was reached.
16. Line 696: suggest "limitations" instead of "limits".
17. Line 702: suggest "view from KaRIn" and "large-scale, basin-wide"
18. Line 703: no hyphen needed in El Nino.
19. Line 719: I think the word "but" should be deleted.
20. Line 741: suggest "tidal residuals"
21. Line 747L missing letter "a"-- "tides have a very different paradigm"
22. Lines 814-815: I tend to doubt that a tropical cyclone could remove enough heat to lower sea level by 20 cm. It seems more likely a dynamic response caused an adjustment in SSH (ie, the heat probably moved laterally).
23. Line 910: missing letter "s" on first "regions"
24. Line 926: suggest "one-size-fits-all"
25. Line 950: suggest "requires a diverse..."Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1501-RC1
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