Manual Book Aviso

SSALTO/DUACS User Handbook:
MSLA and (M)ADT Near-Real Time and Delayed Time Products
Reference : CLS-DOS-NT-06-034
Nomenclature : SALP-MU-P-EA-21065-
CLS
Issue : 5rev 0
Date : 2016/08/20
CLS-DOS-NT-06-034 - Issue 5.0 - Date : 2016/08/20 - Nomenclature : SALP-MU-P-EA-21065-CLS i.1
Chronology Issues :
Issue : Date : Reason for change :
2.2 2010/11/18
2.3 2011/01/01 Modification of the commentary on the flags and of the part
"Product generation"
2.4 2011/03/29 Addition of Mozambique products and temporal update of
DT products
2.5 2011/04/16 Addition of daily DT products
2.6 2011/09/01 New version of SLA NetCDF files
Addition of RT products
2.7 2012/01/10 NRT: Addition of Arctic and Europe products
2.8 2012/01/21 Cnes MOE GDR-D orbit on Envisat
2.9 2012/02/06 Addition of Cryosat-2 mission in NRT products
3.0 2012/05/25 End of Envisat mission and addition of Jason-1 on its
geodetic orbit
3.1 2012/07/20 New version "D" of IGDR for Jason-2
3.2 2012/10/20 Addition of Cryosat-2 mission in DT products
3.3 2012/12/04 NRT: Improvement in the processing of Cryosat-2,
DT:integration of Jason-1 geodetic mission and new ver-
sion D of Jason-2
3.4 2013/01/29 Global SLA NRT: Integration of "OGDR on the fly" data
3.5 2013/07/01 NRT: Integration of Saral/AltiKa and OGDR Cryosat-2
data
3.6 2013/09/04 NRT: Improvement of DAC correction
4.0 2014/04/15 NRT and DT: DUACS 2014 version of products
4.1 2014/05/20 NRT: Addition of HY-2A mission
4.2 2014/11/15 DT: Addition of HY-2A mission
4.3 2015/05/18 NRT and DT: New orbit standards GDR-E (Jason-2,
Cryosat-2, AltiKa)
4.4 2015/06/30 NRT and DT: Implementation of the Saral/AltiKa geode-
tic orbit
5.0 2016/08/20 New dissemination including CMEMS
List of Tables
1 Products and Dissemination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Input Products and their CMEMS nomenclature (NRT=Near-Real-Time, REP: Reprocessed=Delayed-
Time) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3 List of the products in NRT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4 List of the Along-track products in DT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
List of Figures
1 Example of Jason-3 Sea Level Anomalies (SLA) map for one cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 SSALTO/Duacs processing sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3 Example with the key performance indicator on 2009/06/27 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4 Three merged maps are produced daily: final map (d-6), intermediate map (d-3) and pre-
liminary map (d0) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5 List of satellites in all-sat-merged products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
List of acronyms
AL AltiKa
ATP Along-Track Product
ADT Absolute Dynamic Topography
AVISO Archiving, Validation and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic data
BGLO Biais Grande Longueur dOnde
Cal/Val Calibration - Validation
CERSAT Centre ERS dArchivage et de Traitement
CORSSH CORrected Sea Surface Height
C2 Cryosat-2
DAC Dynamic Atmospheric Correction
DT Delayed Time
DTU Mean Sea Surface computed by Technical University of Danemark
DUACS Data Unification and Altimeter Combination System
E1 ERS-1
E2 ERS-2
EN Envisat
ENN Envisat on its non repetitive orbit (since cycle 94)
ECMWF European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting
ENACT ENhanced ocean data Assimilation and Climate prediction
G2 Geosat Follow On
GIM Global Ionospheric Maps
GDR Geophysical Data Record(s)
HY-2A Haiyang-2A
IERS International Earth Rotation Service
IGDR Interim Geophysical Data Record(s)
J1 Jason-1
J1N Jason-1 on its new orbit (since cycle 262)
J1G Jason-1 on its geodetic orbit (since May 2012)
J2 OSTM/Jason-2
J2N OSTM/Jason-2 on its new orbit
J3 Jason-3
JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory
LAS Live Access Server
LWE Long Wavelength Errors
MADT Map of Absolute Dynamic Topgraphy
MDT Mean Dynamic Topography
MOE Medium Orbit Ephemeris
MP Mean Profile
MSLA Map of Sea Level Anomaly
MSS Mean Sea Surface
NRT Near-Real Time
OE Orbit Error
OER Orbit Error Reduction
Opendap Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol
PO.DAAC Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Centre

POE Precise Orbit Ephemeris
RD Reference Document
SAD Static Auxiliary Data
SARAL Satellite with ARgos and ALtika
SLA Sea Level Anomaly
SSALTO Ssalto multimission ground segment
SSH Sea Surface Height
T/P Topex/Poseidon
TPN Topex/Poseidon on its new orbit (since cycle 369)
Contents
1. Introduction 1
1.1. Data policy and data access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Latest operational operations 3

2.1. Jason-3 mission for NRT products (September 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. July 4th 2016, new phase for AltiKa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. SSALTO/Duacs system 5
3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Input data, models and corrections applied . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3. Computation of ADT-H and MADT-H Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4. Computation of geostrophic velocities Products (MSLA-UV and MADT-UV) . . . . . . . . 8
3.5. Computation of monthly and seasonal means and climatologies (MSLA-Clim) . . . . . . . . 8
3.6. Performance indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4. SSALTO/DUACS Products 10
4.1. Near Real Time Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.1.1. Delay of the products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1.2. Temporal availibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2. Delayed Time Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.1. Delay of the products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.2. Temporal availibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5. Data format 16
5.1. NetCdf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.2. Structure and semantic of NetCDF along-track (L3) files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.3. Structure and semantic of NetCDF maps (L4) files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6. Accessibility of the products 19

6.1. Folders on the ftp server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
6.1.1. Gridded Delayed-Time and Near-Real-Time products (ADT, Geostrophic currents) . 20
6.1.2. Along-track Delayed Time and Near Real Time ADT files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
6.1.3. Gridded Delayed-Time Means and Climatologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6.2. Nomenclature of files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.2.1. Gridded Delayed-Time and Near-Real-Time products (ADT, Geostrophic currents) . 23
6.2.2. Along-track Delayed Time and Near Real Time ADT files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7. News and Updates 25

7.1. [Duacs] Operational news . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
CLS-DOS-NT-06-034 - Issue 5.0 - Date : 2016/08/20 - Nomenclature : SALP-MU-P-EA-21065-CLS 1
1. Introduction
The purpose of this document is to describe the products distributed by Aviso+:
the along-track Absolute Dynamic Topography heights (ADT-H)
the gridded Absolute Dynamic Topography heights (MADT-H)
the gridded geostrophic velocities anomalies (MSLA-UV)
the gridded absolute geostrophic velocities (MADT-UV)
the gridded Monthly and Seasonal Means and Climatologies Sea Level Anomalies heights (MSLA-
Clim)
over Global, Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea areas.
The products are derived from the SSALTO/Duacs processing which integrates data from all altimeter mis-
sions: HY-2A, Saral/AltiKa, Cryosat-2, OSTM/Jason-2, Jason-1, Topex/Poseidon, Envisat, GFO, ERS-1&2.
DUACS provides a consistent and homogeneous catalogue of products for varied applications, both for near
real time applications and offline studies. Some DUACS gridded products are available free of charge. Com-
mercial use of some gridded products is subject to separate agreement and licence (Contact [email protected]).
Note that the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS http://http://marine.
copernicus.eu/) is now in charge of the processing and distribution of the Sea Level Anomalies
heights along-track and gridded products (SLA-H, MSLA-H) except for Mozambique Area. Please, re-
fer to CMEMS if you need one of those products. The Mozambique Products are still distributed by
Aviso+ and a dedicated handbook is available (see http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/
product-information/aviso-user-handbooks.html. See the following table for complete
information about the dissemination:
Global Mediterranean Black Sea Europe Arctic Mozambique

Sea
SLA-H CMEMS CMEMS CMEMS CMEMS CMEMS Aviso+
MSLA-H CMEMS CMEMS CMEMS No No Aviso+
MSLA-UV Aviso+ Aviso+ Aviso+ No No Aviso+
ADT-H Aviso+ Aviso+ No No No No
MADT-H Aviso+ Aviso+ No No No No
MADT-UV Aviso+ Aviso+ No No No No
MSLA-Clim Aviso+ Aviso+ Aviso+ No No No
Aviso+ distributed by Aviso+

Aviso+ distributed by Aviso+ at the moment, will be distributed by CMEMS as from April 2017
CMEMS distributed by CMEMS
Table 1: Products and Dissemination

The SLAs are used as input of the ADT-H, MADT-H, MSLA-UV, MADT-UV and MSLA-Clim products.
Please refer to the CMEMS handbook for details of SLA-H and MSLA-H processing:
http://marine.copernicus.eu/documents/PUM/CMEMS-SL-PUM-008-017-033.pdf.
You will find the correspondance between former Aviso+ and current CMEMS products here: http://
www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/product-information/updates-and-reprocessing/
ssaltoduacs-product-changes-and-updates.html#c12028
1.1. Data policy and data access
All SSALTO/DUACS product users need an account on FTP, whether for Near-Real-Time or for Delayed-
Time data, for along-track and gridded products.
As described in the Licence agreement,

Duacs along-track (level 3 ADT-H), gridded heights products (level 4 MADT-H) and gridded Cli-
matologies (MSLA-Clim) are available free of charge for all projects.
Duacs gridded geostrophic velocities anomalies and absolute geostrophic velocities products (level
4+ MSLA-UV and MADT-UV) are available free of charge for scientific studies or non-profit projects
only.
Commercial use of gridded products or applications not in line with the standard license agreement is sub-
ject to separate agreement and licence (Contact [email protected]).
Please, subscribe to get access to SSALTO/DUACS products by filling the registration form on:
http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/data-access/registration-form.html.
2. Latest operational operations
2.1. Jason-3 mission for NRT products (September 2016)
Jason-3 has been implemented in the SL-TAC system on September 2016 as the new reference mission.
By succeeding TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, and Jason-2, Jason-3 extends the high precision altimetry data
record to support climate monitoring, operational oceanography and seasonal forecasting. Launched on
January 17th 2016, Jason-3 is the result of collaboration between CNES, NASA, EUMETSAT and NOAA.
Jason-3 has the same orbit than the current Jason-2 mission, Jason-2 will be moved to a new orbit in or-
der to improve the spatial resolution of gridded products. Note that the integration of Jason-3 in the
SSALTO/Duacs system leads to the deactivation of the current Jason-2 mission. Jason-2 will be rein-
troduced later in the system when available in a new dataset named "j2n".
Figure 1: Example of Jason-3 Sea Level Anomalies (SLA) map for one cycle
2.2. July 4th 2016, new phase for AltiKa
On July 4th 2016, SARAL/AltiKa has begun its new phase named "Saral Drifting Phase". It now
flies free of station keeping manoeuvers; the repetitive ground track is no more maintained and the
ground track will drift. This decision - endorsed by Cnes and ISRO management - is due to the tech-
nical issues encountered since March 2015. As the SSALTO/Duacs processing was already configured
as a geodetic mission, thus no change is foreseen on the chain. Note that the cycle number will jump to
#100. And one cycle will always contain 1002 passes but the numbering and localisation are different:
for example, pass 20 in cycles 1 to 35 is the same ground track with +/-1 1km deviation. Pass 20 in cy-
cle 100 is different from pass 20 in cycles 1 to 35 and is also different from pass 20 in cycles 101, 102,... .
The following points summarizes the past events on the mission:

1/Due to reaction wheel issues, SARAL station keeping maneuvers couldnt be performed nominally since
March 31st , 2015. As a result, SARAL/AltiKas ground track has been drifting with deviations from the
nominal track overtaking 10km depending on the latitude, instead of +/-1km usually.
2/Between April 1st , and August 11th , 2015, the SARAL/AltiKas ground track has been drifting from its
nominal track.
3/Since August 11th, 2015 and thanks to many maneuvers, the platform was again under control and the
nominal track has been reached.
Consequently, this drift had an impact on the SSALTO/Duacs AL products between April 1st , 2015 and
August 11th , 2015. As the mission was processed as a repetitive mission (see below), the distance between
the theoretical track and the true track position was large, this projection processing induced an additional
error in the product. Since mid may 2015, we had indeed observed an increase of the variability of the
SARAL/AltiKa SLA at short wavelengths (< about 200km).
4/Since June 30th , 2015, in order to limit the degradation of the quality of the product in NRT processing,
the SARAL/AltiKa mission was processed as a geodetic mission as decribed below.
Processing for a repetitive mission:

In this case, the position of the points vary from one cycle to another one within +/- 1 km. The processing
for a repetitive mission (like Jason-2 for example) includes the projection of the measurement onto a the-
oretical track position in order to benefit from the precise Mean Profile estimated from past missions (see
http://marine.copernicus.eu/documents/PUM/CMEMS-SL-PUM-008-017-033.pdf).
Processing for a geodetic mission:
In this case, the positions of the points can vary from one cycle to another one of more than +/- 1km.The
processing for a non repetitive or a geodetic mission (like Crysoat-2 for example) avoids the projection
of the measurement into a theoretical track position because it doesnt exists. In order to correct the
measurement for computing Sea Level Anomalies, a gridded Mean Sea Surface (MSS) solution is used
rather than a more precise Mean Profile for SLA computation (see http://marine.copernicus.
eu/documents/PUM/CMEMS-SL-PUM-008-017-033.pdf). However, SSALTO/Duacs process-
ing includes an along-track filtering that strongly reduces this error signature on filtered products (see
http://marine.copernicus.eu/documents/PUM/CMEMS-SL-PUM-008-017-033.pdf).
3. SSALTO/Duacs system
3.1. Introduction
This chapter presents the input data used by the system and an overview of the different processing steps
necessary to produce the output data.
SSALTO/DUACS system is made of two components: a Near Real Time one (NRT) and a Delayed Time
(DT) one.
In NRT, the systems primary objective is to provide operational applications with directly usable high qual-
ity altimeter data from all missions available.
In DT, it is to maintain a consistent and user-friendly altimeter database using the state-of-the-art recom-
mendations from the altimetry community.
Following figure gives an overview of the system, where processing sequences can be divided into 7 main
steps:
acquisition
homogenization
input data quality control
multi-mission cross-calibration
product generation
merging
final quality control.

Figure 2: SSALTO/Duacs processing sequences

3.2. Input data, models and corrections applied
The input data are the Sea Level Anomalies Heights provided by CMEMS. Two flows are needed: the
Near-Real-Time flow and the Delayed-Time flow. All the information about the processing of the input data
is available in the CMEMS handbook:
http://marine.copernicus.eu/documents/PUM/CMEMS-SL-PUM-008-017-033.pdf
The details about the products used are the following :
Global NRT SEALEVEL_GLO_SLA_L3_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_017
REP SEALEVEL_GLO_SLA_L3_REP_OBSERVATIONS_008_018
Mediterranean Sea NRT SEALEVEL_MED_SLA_L3_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_019
SLA-H REP SEALEVEL_MED_SLA_L3_REP_OBSERVATIONS_008_020
Black Sea NRT SEALEVEL_BS_SLA_L3_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_022
REP SEALEVEL_BS_SLA_L3_REP_OBSERVATIONS_008_023
Global NRT SEALEVEL_GLO_SLA_MAP_L4_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_026
REP SEALEVEL_GLO_SLA_MAP_L4_REP_OBSERVATIONS_008_027
MSLA-H Mediterranean Sea NRT SEALEVEL_MED_SLA_MAP_L4_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_028
REP SEALEVEL_MED_SLA_MAP_L4_REP_OBSERVATIONS_008_029
Black Sea NRT SEALEVEL_BS_SLA_MAP_L4_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_030
REP SEALEVEL_BS_SLA_MAP_L4_REP_OBSERVATIONS_008_031
Table 2: Input Products and their CMEMS nomenclature (NRT=Near-Real-Time, REP:

Reprocessed=Delayed-Time)
3.3. Computation of ADT-H and MADT-H Products
Along-track and gridded ADT (Absolute Dynamic Topography) products are obtained as follows:
ADT = SLA + MDT
where MDT is the Mean Dynamic Topography. The Mean Dynamic Topography is the part of Mean Sea
Surface Height due to permanent currents, so MDT corresponds to the Mean Sea Surface Height minus
Geoid. Since DUACS 2014 version, a new MDT has been used: it takes into account the recent geoid mean
field (GOCE DIR-R4) and in-situ dataset, as well as improved processing method. Details are presented in
Rio et al, 2013 [61].
Note that the ADT products have been computed with consistent SLA and MDT fields:
ADT = SLA20years + MDT20years
The regional Mediterranean ADT product is computed using a specific regional MDT (Mediterranean Sea
only) given in Rio et al., 2014 [62]:
ADTM ed = SLAM ed + MDTM ed
The MDT is dirtibuted by Aviso+. All information can be found in http://www.aviso.altimetry.

fr/en/data/products/auxiliary-products/mdt.html.
3.4. Computation of geostrophic velocities Products (MSLA-UV and MADT-UV)
The combined map is used to generate by-products such as geostrophic currents.

Since DUACS 2014 version, the geostrophic current computation is improved with:
The use of the 9-point stencil width method (Arbic et al, 2012, [3]) at latitudes appart from 5. It
contributes to reduce the impact of the anisotropy introduced by the Cartesian 1/4 grid resolution.
The SLA computation is Largerloef et al, 1999 [37] in the equatorial band is improved in order to
smooth the transition at 5 and improve the consistency between altimeter products and drifter ob-
servations.
More information can be found in

http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/fileadmin/documents/data/duacs/Duacs2014.pdf.
3.5. Computation of monthly and seasonal means and climatologies (MSLA-Clim)
Three kinds of means are proposed:

Monthly MSLA means correspond to the sea level anomalies averaged by month since January 1993.
Seasonal MSLA means correspond to the sea level anomalies averaged by season (JFL-AMJ-JAS-
OND) since January 1993.
Climatological monthly MSLA are calculated by averaging the Sea Level Anomalies over a same
month for all the years. We obtain one file and one map for each month.
3.6. Performance indicators
To appreciate the quality situation of the DUACS system, performance indicators are computed daily. They
aim at evaluate the status of the main processing steps of the system: the input data availability, the input
data coverage, the input data quality and the output product quality. These indicators are computed for each
and every currently working satellite, and combined to obtain the overall status.
Figure 3: Example with the key performance indicator on 2009/06/27
See the description, the latest and previous indicators on Aviso website:
http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/product-information/information-about-mono
ssaltoduacs-multimission-altimeter-products/key-performance-indicators.html
4. SSALTO/DUACS Products
4.1. Near Real Time Products
The purpose of the NRT component is the acquisition of altimeter data from various altimeter missions
in near-real time (i.e. within a few days at most) and in real-time for global area on all satellites (i.e. within
a few hours), the validation and correction of these altimeter data sets (i.e edition and selection, update of
corrections and homogenization, orbit error reduction) in order to produce each day along-track and gridded
products.
Exploitation of real time OGDR data allows the DUACS system to produce multi-mission maps with 0-day
and 3-day delay whereas historical NRT (IGDR-based) production have a 6-day delay (induced by historical
trade-off in terms of timeliness vs quality).
The quality measurements in the NRT processing is more sensitive to the number of altimeter missions in-
volved in the system. This is mainly due to the orbit error and the non-centered processing time-window (in
NRT case, "future" data are not available; the computation time window takes into account only the 6 weeks
before the date).
If two altimeters are acknowledged as the bare minimum needed to observe mesoscale signals in DT maps,
three or even four missions are needed to obtain equivalent accuracy in NRT (Pascual et al., 2006[50]).
Along-track products Gridded products

NRT ADT-H NRT MSLA NRT MADT
Filtered UV H UV
Global X all sat all sat all sat
Mediterranean X all sat all sat all sat
Black Sea - all sat - -
Table 3: List of the products in NRT

4.1.1. Delay of the products

The availability of the products in near real time is
for along-track products: three to twelve hours after the measurement for regional products and 2
hours for global Saral and Jason-3 products and 3 hours for global Cryosat-2 products.
for gridded products: day-0 , day-3 and day-6 days.
Those products are delivered every day.
Three merged maps are produced daily, each with a different delay and quality:
A 6-day delay, which represents a final NRT map production,
A 3-day delay, which represents an intermediate map production,;
and a 0-day delay, which represents a preliminary map production, based on IGDR+OGDR produc-
tion.
Then, these maps are replaced when a better quality data is available:
At d0+6 , the final NRT map replaces the preliminary map which was produced at d0 .
Figure 4: Three merged maps are produced daily: final map (d-6), intermediate map (d-3) and preliminary
map (d0)
4.1.2. Temporal availibility

The following table presents the available products by mission and by data period:
Near real time products:
NRT Jason-3 Jason-2 Cryosat-2 Saral/AltiKa HY-2A Merged

Temporal Time 2016/09/05 y/m y/m y/m y/m y/m
availability ongoing 2016/09/05 ongoing ongoing 2016/01/05 ongoing
MSLA-UV () X
ADT-H X X X X
MADT-H X
MADT-UV() X
y/m: the temporal coverage for NRT products is fluctuating and is updated regularly (3 to 4 times per year when DT
products are updated). The users are advised thanks to the Aviso web at: http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/
en/data/product-information/duacs/presentation/updates/index.html
UV anomalies are Geostrophic velocities anomalies derived from NRT-MSLA
Absolute UV are absolute Geostrophic velocities derived from NRT-MADT

4.2. Delayed Time Products
The Delayed Time component of SL-TAC system is responsible for the production of processed HY-2A, Saral/AltiKa,
Cryosat-2, Jason-1, Jason-2, T/P, Envisat, GFO, ERS1/2 data in order to provide a homogeneous, inter-calibrated and
highly accurate long time series of ADT and MADT altimeter data .
DT products are more precise than NRT products. Two reasons explain this quality difference. The first one is the
better intrinsic quality of the POE orbit used in the GDR processing. The second reason is that in the DT DUACS
processing, the products can be computed optimally with a centred computation time window for OER, LWE and
mapping processes (6 weeks before and after the date) . On the contrary in NRT case, "future" data are not available
so the computation time window is not centred and therefore not optimal.
As for NRT products, improved altimeter corrections and processing algorithms are used: ocean tide model to correct
altimeter data, improved methods for orbit error reduction and mapping.
DT Along-track DT Gridded products

products
ADT-H MSLA MADT MSLA Clim
Filtered Uniltered UV H UV H
VFEC VXXC
Global X X all sat all sat all sat all sat

Mediterranean X X all sat all sat all sat all sat
Black Sea - - all sat - - -
Table 4: List of the Along-track products in DT
All the gridded Delayed-Time products (merged global/regional) have been computed with a daily temporal resolution.
This means that the maps are reprocessed for every day.
This ambitious reprocessing was motivated by the fact that the weekly resolution used so far for DT maps in former
version was insufficient wherever the time decorrelation scale is close to 15 days, especially when end-users want to
perform a simple linear time interpolation between consecutive maps.
4.2.1. Delay of the products

Daily products are delivered. The availability of the products in delayed time is at the best two months after the date
of the measurement. The product generation needs all the GDR data of all the missions to take into account the best
corrections as possible. The time delay can be longer in the case of a missing mission.
4.2.2. Temporal availibility

The following table presents the available products by mission and by data period:
Delayed time SSALTO/DUACS all-sat-merged products:
DT all sat Temporal availibility MSLA- ADT-H MADT-H MADT- MSLA-

UV UV Clim
begin date end date
HY-2A 2014/04 y/m1 X
1
Saral/AltiKa 2013/03 y/m X
Cryosat-2 2012/04 y/m1 X
Jason-2 2008/10 y/m1 X
Jason-1 geodetic2 2012/06 2013/04 X
Jason-1 new2 2009/02 2012/03 X
Jason-1 2002/04 2008/10 X
GFO 2000/01 2008/09 X
2
Envisat new 2010/10 2012/04 X
Envisat 2002/10 2010/10 X
ERS-12 /ERS-2 1992/10 2003/04 X
2
Topex new 2002/09 2005/10 X
Topex 1993/01 2002/04 X
1
Merged 1993/01 y/m X X X X
1
y/m: the temporal coverage for DT products is fluctuating and is updated regularly (3 to 4 times per year). The users
are advised thanks to the Aviso web at: http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/product-information/
updates-and-reprocessing/ssaltoduacs-delayed-time-reprocessing.html
2
Jason-1 geodetic orbit: starting 2012/05, Jason-1 new orbit : starting 2009/02, Envisat new orbit : starting 2010/10,
T/P new orbit : starting 2002/09, ERS-1 geodetic phases (E-F) are included. No ERS-1 data between December 23,
1993 and April 10, 1994 (ERS-1 phase D - 2nd ice phase). Note that, during that time, merged products are based only
on Topex/Poseidon data.
The merged products were obtained with the satellites given in figure 5. Moreover, the global attribute in the gridded
file called "platform" gives the list of satellites used to compute the map.
Figure 5: List of satellites in all-sat-merged products

5. Data format
This chapter presents the data storage format used for SSALTO/DUACS products.
5.1. NetCdf
The products are stored using the NetCDF format. NetCDF (network Common Data Form) is an interface for array-
oriented data access and a library that provides an implementation of the interface. The netCDF library also defines
a machine-independent format for representing scientific data. Together, the interface, library, and format support the
creation, access, and sharing of scientific data. The netCDF software was developed at the Unidata Program Center in
Boulder, Colorado. The netCDF libraries define a machine-independent format for representing scientific data. Please
see Unidata NetCDF pages for more information, and to retreive NetCDF software package on:
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/index.html.
NetCDF data is:

Self-Describing. A netCDF file includes information about the data it contains.
Architecture-independent. A netCDF file is represented in a form that can be accessed by computers with dif-
ferent ways of storing integers, characters, and floating-point numbers.
Direct-access. A small subset of a large dataset may be accessed efficiently, without first reading through all
the preceding data.
Appendable. Data can be appended to a netCDF dataset along one dimension without copying the dataset or
redefining its structure. The structure of a netCDF dataset can be changed, though this sometimes causes the
dataset to be copied.
Sharable. One writer and multiple readers may simultaneously access the same netCDF file.
5.2. Structure and semantic of NetCDF along-track (L3) files
The NetCDF SSALTO/DUACS files are based on the attribute data tags defined by the Cooperative Ocean/Atmosphere
Research Data Service (COARDS) and Climate and Forecast (CF) metadata conventions. The CF convention gener-
alises and extends the COARDS convention but relaxes the COARDS constraints on dimension and order and specifies
methods for reducing the size of datasets.
A wide range of software is available to write or read NetCDF/CF files. API are made available by UNIDATA
(http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf):
C/C++/Fortran
Java
MATLAB, Objective-C, Perl, Python, R, Ruby, Tcl/Tk
In addition to these conventions, the files are using a common structure and semantic:
1 dimension is defined:
time: it is used to check NetCDF variables depending on time.
6 variables are defined:
short SLA or ADT: contains the Sea Level Anomaly or Absolute Dynamic Topography values for each
time given,
int longitude : contains the longitude for each measurement,
int latitude : contains the latitude for each measurement,
short track : contains the track number for each measurement,
double time : contains the time in days since 1950-01-01 00:00:00 UTC for each measurement,
short flag : only for NRT products. flag=0, the processed data comes from OGDR; if flag=1, the processed
data comes from the IGDR
short cycle : contains the cycle number for each measurement.
global attributes:
the global attributes gives information about the creation of the file.
5.3. Structure and semantic of NetCDF maps (L4) files
The NetCDF SSALTO/DUACS files are based on the attribute data tags defined by the Cooperative Ocean/Atmosphere
Research Data Service (COARDS) and Climate and Forecast (CF) metadata conventions. The CF convention gener-
alises and extends the COARDS convention but relaxes the COARDS constraints on dimension and order and specifies
methods for reducing the size of datasets.
A wide range of software is available to write or read NetCDF/CF files. API are made available by UNIDATA
(http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf):
C/C++/Fortran
Java
MATLAB, Objective-C, Perl, Python, R, Ruby, Tcl/Tk
In addition to these conventions, the files are using a common structure and semantic:
4 Dimensions are defined:
time: date of the map,
lat: contains the latitude of grid points ,
lon: contains the longitude of grid points,
nv: used for mapping conventions
8 or 9 Variables are used for all grids defined below:
float time : contains the time in days since 1950-01-01 00:00:00 UTC,
float lat : contains the latitude for each measurement,
float lon : contains the longitude for each measurement,
float lat_bnds : contains the min and max in latitude of each box,
float lon_bnds : contains the min and max in longitude of each box,
int crs: used for mapping conventions
the fields used for msla_h files are:
int sla: contains the eea level anomalies of the measurements and
int err: contains the formal mapping error in meters
the fields used for msla_uv and madt_uv files
int u: contains the zonal component of the geostrophic velocity of the measurements and
int v: contains the meridian component of the geostrophic velocity of the measurements
the fields used for madt_h files
int adt: contains the absolute dynamic topography of the measurements
global attributes:
the global attributes gives information about the creation of the file. Not that there is a new global attribute
called "platform" indicating the list of satellites taken into account to compute the maps.
6. Accessibility of the products
Aviso proposes several ways of accessing data. Some of them need an authentication. If you are not registered and
want to access to an authenticated service, we request you to fill in the online form.
According to the type of SSALTO/DUACS data, products are available:
Via authenticated FTP on
ftp://ftp.aviso.altimetry.fr/
Note that once your request is processed (after filling the online form), Aviso will send you your own access
(login/password) by e-mail as soon as possible. If you dont enter your login/password, you will only access to
the anonymous FTP, where you wont find the data youre interested in.
Via the Live Access Server (LAS) on the AVISO web site
(http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/data-access/las-live-access-server.
html). The LAS is a tool to draw your own map.
Only gridded products are accessible via the LAS.
Via authenticated OpenDap, a framework that simplifies all aspects of scientific data networking (http:
//www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/data-access/aviso-opendap.html).
Only gridded products are accessible via OpenDap.
Via the authenticated Aviso data extraction (http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/data-access/
gridded-data-extraction-tool.html) tool enables you to extract a data sub-set from the Aviso
gridded datasets. You can choose either an area (by its geographical coordinates or among pre-defined re-
gions), or a period for variable(s) within a given dataset
FTP Opendap1 Aviso extraction LAS1

Service1
Near Real-Time x
Historical NRT x x x x
(for data >1 month)
Delayed time x x x x
(1) Only gridded products

6.1. Folders on the ftp server
We keep your attention to well enter your login/password to get access to FTP server, if not, you will access only
the anonymous FTP
(/donnees/ftpsedr/ftpanonymous/pub/oceano/AVISO/SSH/duacs), where you only find sample data sets.
Access restrictions are applied on folders. Your account gives you an access to a given list of altimetry data. Thus, the
folders youre not subscribed to are empty.
6.1.1. Gridded Delayed-Time and Near-Real-Time products (ADT, Geostrophic currents)

The nomenclature used for the folders is:
<ZONE>_<DELAY>_grids_<NBSAT>_<PRODUCT>_<VARIABLE>_<YEAR>
ZONE global global geographic coverage product

regional-mediterranean Mediterranean products
regional-blacksea Black Sea products
DELAY delayed-time delayed time products
near-real-time near-real time products
NBSAT all-sat-merged maximum 4 satellites to compute the map
PRODUCT msla maps of sea level anomaly (only for uv)
madt(1) maps of absolute dynamic topography
VARIABLE h sea surface heights and error (only for
madt)
uv sea surface geostrophic currents
YEAR YYYY year of the maps (only in DT)
(1) No MADT files for Black Sea regional products.
6.1.2. Along-track Delayed Time and Near Real Time ADT files
The nomenclature used for the along-track ADT folders is:
<ZONE>_<DELAY>_along-track_<FILTERING>_<PRODUCT>_<MISSION>_<YEAR>

near-real-time near-real time products
FILTERING filtered filtered and sub-sampled products (*vfec*)
unfiltered not filtered and not sub-sampled products
(*vxxc*)
PRODUCT adt absolute dynamic topography
MISSION e1 ERS-1
e2 ERS-2
tp Topex/Poseidon
tpn Topex/Poseidon on its new orbit
g2 GFO
j1 Jason-1
j1n Jason-1 on its new orbit
j2 Jason-2
en Envisat
enn Envisat on its new orbit
c2 Cryosat-2
al Saral/AltiKa
h2 HY-2A
YEAR YYYY year of the maps (only in DT)
6.1.3. Gridded Delayed-Time Means and Climatologies

The nomenclature used for the folders is:
<ZONE>_<DELAY>_gids_climatology_<AVG>

regional-blacksea Black Sea products
AVG seasonal_clim maps of seasonal average of sea level
anomaly
monthly_mean maps of mean average of sea level anomaly
monthly_clim maps of climatologies of sea level anomaly
6.2. Nomenclature of files
6.2.1. Gridded Delayed-Time and Near-Real-Time products (ADT, Geostrophic currents)

The nomenclature used for these products is:
DELAY_ZONE_NBSAT_PRODUCT_VARIABLE_DATEMAP_DATEPROD.nc
DELAY dt delayed time products

nrt near-real time products
med Mediterranean products
blacksea Black Sea products
NBSAT allsat maximum 4 satellites to compute the map
PRODUCT msla maps of sea level anomaly (only for uv)
madt(1) maps of absolute dynamic topography
VARIABLE h sea surface heights (only for adt)
uv sea surface geostrophic currents
DATEMAP YYYYMMDD date of the dataset
DATEPROD YYYYMMDD production date of the dataset
(1) No MADT files for Black Sea regional products.
6.2.2. Along-track Delayed Time and Near Real Time ADT files
The nomenclature used for the along-track ADT products is:
DELAY_ZONE_MISSION_PRODUCT_VARIABLE_DATEDATA_DATEPROD.nc
DELAY dt delayed time products

nrt near-real time products
MISSION e1 ERS-1
e2 ERS-2
tp Topex/Poseidon
tpn Topex/Poseidon on its new orbit
g2 GFO
j1 Jason-1
j1n Jason-1 on its new orbit
j2 Jason-2
en Envisat
enn Envisat on its new orbit
c2 Cryosat-2
al Saral/AltiKa
h2 HY-2A
j3 Jason-3
ZONE global Global geographic coverage product
med Mediterranean products
PRODUCT adt absolute dynamic topography
VARIABLE X1 X2 X3 X4 X1 is "v" for validated data and "x" for non
validated data
X2 is "f" for filtered data and "x" for non
filtered data
X3 is "e" for sub-sampled and "x" for non
sub-sampled data
X4 is "c" for LWE-corrected data and "x"
for non-LWE-corrected data or raw data
DATEDATA YYYYMMDD date of the dataset
DATEPROD YYYYMMDD production date of the dataset
7. News and Updates
7.1. [Duacs] Operational news
To be kept informed on events occurring on the satellites and on the eventual interruption of the services of the
processing system, see the [Duacs] operational news on the Aviso website:
http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/data/operational-news/index.html.
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SSALTO/DUACS User Handbook:

MSLA and (M)ADT Near-Real Time and Delayed Time Products

PO.DAAC Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Centre

2. Latest operational operations 3

6. Accessibility of the products 19

7. News and Updates 25

The purpose of this document is to describe the products distributed by Aviso+:

the along-track Absolute Dynamic Topography heights (ADT-H)

the gridded Absolute Dynamic Topography heights (MADT-H)

the gridded geostrophic velocities anomalies (MSLA-UV)

the gridded absolute geostrophic velocities (MADT-UV)

over Global, Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea areas.

Global Mediterranean Black Sea Europe Arctic Mozambique

Aviso+ distributed by Aviso+

Table 1: Products and Dissemination

1.1. Data policy and data access

As described in the Licence agreement,

2. Latest operational operations

2.1. Jason-3 mission for NRT products (September 2016)

2.2. July 4th 2016, new phase for AltiKa

The following points summarizes the past events on the mission:

Processing for a repetitive mission:

input data quality control

final quality control.

Figure 2: SSALTO/Duacs processing sequences

3.2. Input data, models and corrections applied

Global NRT SEALEVEL_GLO_SLA_L3_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_017

Mediterranean Sea NRT SEALEVEL_MED_SLA_L3_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_019

SLA-H REP SEALEVEL_MED_SLA_L3_REP_OBSERVATIONS_008_020

Black Sea NRT SEALEVEL_BS_SLA_L3_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_022

Global NRT SEALEVEL_GLO_SLA_MAP_L4_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_026

MSLA-H Mediterranean Sea NRT SEALEVEL_MED_SLA_MAP_L4_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_028

Black Sea NRT SEALEVEL_BS_SLA_MAP_L4_NRT_OBSERVATIONS_008_030

Table 2: Input Products and their CMEMS nomenclature (NRT=Near-Real-Time, REP:

3.3. Computation of ADT-H and MADT-H Products

ADT = SLA20years + MDT20years

ADTM ed = SLAM ed + MDTM ed

The MDT is dirtibuted by Aviso+. All information can be found in http://www.aviso.altimetry.

3.4. Computation of geostrophic velocities Products (MSLA-UV and MADT-UV)

The combined map is used to generate by-products such as geostrophic currents.

More information can be found in

3.5. Computation of monthly and seasonal means and climatologies (MSLA-Clim)

Three kinds of means are proposed:

3.6. Performance indicators

Figure 3: Example with the key performance indicator on 2009/06/27

4.1. Near Real Time Products

Along-track products Gridded products

Table 3: List of the products in NRT

4.1.1. Delay of the products

for gridded products: day-0 , day-3 and day-6 days.

Those products are delivered every day.

A 6-day delay, which represents a final NRT map production,

A 3-day delay, which represents an intermediate map production,;

4.1.2. Temporal availibility

NRT Jason-3 Jason-2 Cryosat-2 Saral/AltiKa HY-2A Merged

UV anomalies are Geostrophic velocities anomalies derived from NRT-MSLA

Absolute UV are absolute Geostrophic velocities derived from NRT-MADT

4.2. Delayed Time Products

DT Along-track DT Gridded products