AbstractBroadly speaking, the goal of the Ocean Topography Experiment (TOPEX/POSEIDON) is to utilize satellite radar altimetry to provide global ocean topography measurements with sufficient accuracy and precision to significantly enhance our understanding of the general circulation of the global oceans. Such information is needed to better understand how the atmosphere drives the circulation of the oceans, how the oceans in turn influence the atmosphere and, ultimately, the role of the oceans in climate change. Current plans call for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the French Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) to collaborate on TOPEX/POSEIDON in order to more fully exploit the scientific value of the data. Earliest launch of TOPEX/POSEIDON would be in late 1991, followed by three years of data acquisition and analysis. Together with ESA's first European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS-1) planned for flight in December 1989, and NASA's Scatterometer (NSCAT) planned for flight on the U.S. Navy Remote Ocean Sensing System (N-ROSS) in September 1990, TOPEX/POSEIDON promises to provide a fundamental breakthrough in our knowledge of how the oceans work as a global system. TOPEX/POSEIDON is also being planned in concert with the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE), a major international oceanographic field program being conducted under the auspices of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP). WOCE will combine satellite observations from TOPEX/POSEIDON, ERS-1, and N-ROSS/NSCAT with traditional observations to enable the first ever determination of the three-dimensional current structure of the global oceans.
TOPEX/POSEIDON: An international satellite oceanography mission
Acta Astronautica ; 16 ; 213-220
1987-01-01
8 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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