This is the Atmospheric Thematic Data Product (TDP) V1 resulting from the _$$ESA FDR4ALT project$$ https://www.fdr4alt.org/ and containing Total Column Water Vapour (TCWV), Cloud Liquid Water Path (LWP), Atmospheric Attenuation of the altimeter backscattering coefficient at Ku-band (AttKu), and Wet Tropospheric Correction (WTC), retrieved from observations of the Microwave Radiometer (MWR) instruments flown on-board the ERS-1, and ERS-2, and Envisat satellites.
Compared to existing datasets, the Atmospheric TDP demonstrates notable improvements in several aspects:
Improved temporal coverage, especially for ERS-2
Improved L0 -> 1 processing
Two different corrections are provided based on a neural network retrieval or on a 1D-VAR approach
The FDR4ALT products are available in NetCDF format. Free standard tools for reading NetCDF data can be used.
Information for expert altimetry users is also available in a dedicated NetCDF group within the products.
Please consult the _$$FDR4ALT Product User Guide$$ https://earth.esa.int/eogateway/documents/d/earth-online/fdr4alt-products-user-guide before using the data.
The FDR4ALT datasets represent the new reference data for the ERS/Envisat altimetry missions, superseding any previous mission data. Users are strongly encouraged to make use of these datasets for optimal results.