Ionospheric climatology from altimtetric satellite missions

AZPILICUETA, F.; BRUNINI, C.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Workshop; Seminario Argentino-Italiano sobre Investigación ionosférica aplicada; 2005

Istituto di Geofisica y Vulcanologia, Italia - Secretaría de Ciencia, Tecnología e Inovación Productiva de la Rep. Argentina.

The continuous development of sea altimetric satellite missions during the past two decades has led to an unprecedented requirement in the measurements accuracy of few centimeters. In order to obtain such accuracy in the ionospheric corrections that affect sea altimetric measurements, a dual-frequency altimeter was a mandatory issue for the new generation of sea altimetric satellite. Topex/Poseidon satellite, a joint program between NASA and CNES, was the first satellite of this new generation. It was launched at beginnings of 1992 and constituted the first satellite that was able to measure in a direct way, the total electron content contained between the satellite and the sea surface. In 2002 Jason 1 satellite was launched and constitutes the second satellite of the new generation. Being sea altimetry dedicated satellites, the general characteristics of the missions: orbit configuration, data coverage, measurement footprint and quality, correction errors, etc. are optimized for sea altimetric scientific research. Based on these features, this contribution presents sea altimetric missions characteristics from an ionospheric point of view and the way to use dual-frequency database generated by Topex/Poseidon and Jason 1 for ionospheric climatology studies.