Overall, CryoTEMPO represents a major step toward the operational exploitation of CryoSat-2 altimetric data for the study of the cryosphere, polar oceans, and continental water resources.
The project delivers satellite-derived elevation measurements across five main thematic areas:
Land Ice
Quality-controlled surface elevation measurements of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, including floating ice shelves and ice tongues, covering the entire mission period (2010–present). Products include uncertainty estimates, surface type classification, reference elevation, and associated glaciological basin.
Sea Ice
Key parameters include radar freeboard and sea-ice freeboard, distributed along-track at the instrument’s maximum resolution. These data enable the estimation of ice elevation relative to the local sea surface, supporting monitoring of sea-ice thickness and state.
Polar Oceans
More than ten-year time series of sea level anomalies and ocean dynamic topography for the Arctic and Antarctic regions. These datasets support studies on sea-level rise, ocean circulation, sea-level budget, and climate processes.
Coastal Oceans
High-accuracy, high-resolution datasets of sea level anomalies and absolute dynamic topography in the Mediterranean basin. Thanks to CryoSat-2 SAR technology and regionally optimized algorithms, these products are particularly suited for coastal applications.
Inland Waters
Water surface elevation measurements of lakes, rivers, and other continental water bodies, including geophysical corrections, uncertainty estimates, and quality indicators. Additional information on surface type and water presence supports data interpretation and analysis.
With specific reference to river systems, results demonstrate that although CryoSat-2 is not a dedicated geodetic mission and has a near-annual revisit time on the same ground track, it provides a high spatial density of observations along river courses.
This enables accurate estimation of river water surface slope, a key parameter for discharge estimation and hydrological monitoring applications.
