GLOBAL STATISTICAL-ANALYSIS OF TOPEX AND POSEIDON DATA

A global statistical analysis of the first 10 months of TOPEX/POSEIDON merged geophysical data records is presented. The global crossover an alysis using the Cartwright and Ray (1990) (CR) tide model and Gaspar et al. (this issue) electromagnetic bias parameterization yields a sea level RMS crossover difference of 10.05 cm, 10.15 cm, and 10.15 cm fo r TOPEX-TOPEX, POSEIDON-POSEIDON, and TOPEX-POSEIDON crossovers, respe ctively, All geophysical corrections give reductions in the crossover differences, the most significant being with respect to ocean tides, s olid earth tide, and inverse barometer effect. Based on TOPEX-POSEIDON crossovers and repeat-track differences, we estimate the relative bia s between TOPEX and POSEIDON at about -15.5 +/- 1 cm. This value is de pendent, however, to the electromagnetic bias corrections used. An orb it error reduction method based on global minimization of crossover di fferences over one cycle yields an orbit error of about 3 cm RMS. This is probably an upper estimate of the orbit error since the estimation absorbs other altimetric signals. The RMS crossover difference is red uced to 8.8 cm after adjustment. A repeat-track analysis is then perfo rmed using the CR tide model. In regions of high mesoscale variability , the RMS sea level variability agrees well with the Geosat results. T idal errors are also clearly evidenced. A recent tide model (Ma et al. , this issue) determined from TOPEX/POSEIDON data considerably improve s the RMS sea level variability. The reduction of sea level variance i s (4 cm)(2) on average but can reach (8 cm)(2) in the southeast Pacifi c, southeast Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. The RMS sea level variabilit y thus decreases from 6 cm to only 4 cm in quiet ocean regions. The la rge-scale sea level variations over these first 10 months most likely show for the first time the global annual cycle of sea level. Finally, we analyze the TOPEX and POSEIDON sea level anomaly wavenumber spectr al characteristics. TOPEX and POSEIDON have identical spectral charact eristics at low wavenumbers. For wavelengths shorter than 100 km, howe ver, POSEIDON spectra are more energetic. This is probably related to the TOPEX tracker characteristics and to the way the acceleration corr ection is made in the geophysical data records. POSEIDON repeat-track noise level is estimated at about 3 cm for a 1-s average. The TOPEX re peat-track noise level is about 1.8 cm RMS but this probably correspon ds to averages over several seconds.