Satellite altimetry observations of ocean dynamic topography

Abstract The experience gained by analysing the Seasat altimetric observation of the ocean dynamic topography is getting more valuable as almost 10 years of nearly continuous altimeter data may be obtained by Geosat, ERSI and Topex/Poseidon. Our group worked on all aspects of the question: the accuracy of the measurements and more particularly the improvements of the orbit determination and its error; the extraction of the dynamic topography signal both on the mesoscale and on the large scales and of tides; the analysis of the observations, whether statistically or in the form of synoptic maps, and finally, how to constrain dynamical models from altimetry data. This paper describes these various aspects of our work.