A global high resolution mean sea surface from multi mission satellite altimetry

Satellite altimetry from the GEOSAT and the ERS-1 geodetic missions provide altimeter data with a very dense coverage. Hence, the heights of the sea s urface may be recovered very detailed. Satellite altimetry from the 35 days repeat cycle mission of the ERS satellites and, especially, from the 10 da ys repeat cycle TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite mission provide repeated height ob servations, so that the mean sea surface heights along the ground tracks ca n be recovered very accurately. In this study a global high resolution mean sea surface (1/8 by 1/8 degrees) is constructed using satellite altimetry from those four missions. The mean sea surface fits the TOPEX/POSEIDON mean sea surface heights within 5 cm and the slopes fit within 2.5 mm per km. ( C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.