Basic Radar Altimetry Toolbox

A NEW SET OF TOOLS FOR ALL ALTIMETRY USERS The field of satellite radar altimetry has matured to a point where it is now time to encourage a multimission approach and conceive an "all-altimeter" toolbox including a tutorial. Such an integrated approach and view is vital not only for assessing the current status of what offers altimeter products but also to show the system and consistency with the past. The Basic Radar Altimetry Toolbox (BRAT) is a collection of tools, tutorials and documents designed to facilitate the use of radar altimetry data for altimetry users, experienced as well as beginners, and particularly the users of the upcoming CryoSat mission. It is able to read most distributed radar altimetry data, from ERS-1 & 2, TOPEX/Poseidon, Geosat Follow-on, JASON-1, Envisat, and the future Cryosat missions, to perform some processing, data editing and statistic and to visualise the results. A version 2 is being developed with additional visualisation features such as waveform viewing. Also, a release for the MacOS is planned. As part of the Toolbox, a Radar Altimetry Tutorial gives general information about altimetry, the technique involved and its applications, as well as an overview of past, present and future missions, including information on how to access data and additional software and documentation. It also presents a series of data use cases, covering all uses of altimetry over ocean, cryosphere and land, showing the basic methods for some of the most frequent manners of using altimetry data.