Feasibility of maintaining satellite altimetry calibration site based on qianliyan islet at the Yellow Sea

Abstract

The calibration of the sea surface height (SSH) measured by satellite altimeters is essential to understand altimeter biases. Many factors affects the construction and maintenance of a permanent calibration site. In order to calibrate Chinese satellite altimetry missions, the feasibility of maintaining a calibration site based on the Qianliyan islet in Yellow Sea of China is taken into account. The related calibration facilities, such as the permanent tide gauge, GNSS reference station and meteorological station, were already operated by the Ministry of Natural Resources of China. The data could be fully used for satellite altimeter calibration with small fiscal expenditure. In addition, the location and marine environments of Qianliyan were discussed. Finally, we used the Jason-3 mission to check the possibility of calibration works. The result indicates that the brightness temperatures of three channels measured by microwave radiometer (MWR) and the derived wet tropospheric correction varies smoothly, which means the land contamination to MWR could be ignored. The high frequency waveforms at the Qianliyan site present no obvious difference from the normal waveforms received by satellite radar altimeter over the open ocean. In conclusion, the Qianliyan islet will not influence satellite altimetry observation. Following these analyses, a possible layout and mechanism of the Qianliyan calibration site are proposed.