Derivation of sea level anomaly based on the best range and geophysical corrections for Malaysian seas using radar altimeter database system (RADS)

The utilization of satellite altimeter data sets from previous and present satellite altimeter missions is imperative to both oceanographic and geodetic applications. The important parameter that can be derived from satellite altimeter is sea level anomaly, while it is also fundamental for sea level monitoring, geoid determination and current circulations study. This paper presents an effort to determine sea level anomaly for Malaysian seas from six satellite altimeter missions; TOPEX, JASON1, JASON2, ERS1, ERS2 and ENVISAT. The best range and geophysical corrections for Malaysian seas were also investigated in this study by evaluating two state of the art corrections available for 9 years of TOPEX satellite altimeter (from January 1993 to December 2001). Sea level data retrieval and reduction were carried out using the Radar Altimeter Database System (RADS). The comparison of near-simultaneous altimeter and tide gauges observations showed good agreement with the correlations are higher than 0.87 at Tioman Island, Langkawi Island and Kota Kinabalu. This paper introduces RADS and deals with determination of sea level anomaly using the best range and geophysical corrections in Malaysian seas.