Monitoring water level over Great Lakes using multi-mission satellite altimetry

Session: Remote Sensing, Visualization, and Spatial Data Applications for the Great Lakes (3)

Yuanyuan Jia, The Ohio State University, [email protected]
Philip Chu, NOAA/GLERL, [email protected]
C K Shum, Dvision of Geodetic Science, School of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, [email protected]
Remko Scharroo, European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), [email protected]

Abstract

Radar altimetry is now commonly used for monitoring of water level over inland water bodies. In this study, a multi-mission satellite radar altimetry-based database was defined in the Great Lakes region using GDR and RADS data from 12 radar altimetry satellites (Geosat, GFO, ERS-1/-2, Envisat, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1/-2/-3, SARAL/Altika, CryoSat-2, Sentinel-3A) spanning more than three decades, 1985–2018. The performance of these missions to retrieve water surface geocentrically referenced heights was assessed through comparisons against in situ water level measurements from National Water Level Observation Network (NOWLON) collected by NOAA/CO-OPS, and all altimetry data exhibited an excellent agreement with NOWLON gauge records, although it is postulated that altimetry can measure Lake-wide water level. The combination of the heterogenous radar altimetry data from all the satellite missions resulted in a long?term and high accurate water?level time series, and a space-based data product with improved spatial coverage than gauges. These measurements could complement existing CoastWatch products and data sets, to improve Great Lakes environmental monitoring including wetlands, potentially help refine the new International Great Lakes Datum (IGLD) for safe navigation, possible monitoring of abrupt weather events, and to enhance Lake forecasting skills via assimilative near real-time data sets into hydrodynamic forecast models.