Summary

Description

Jason-3 is the fourth mission in U.S.-European series of satellite missions that measure the height of the ocean surface. Scheduled to launch in 2015, the mission will extend the time series of ocean surface topography measurements begun by the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite mission in 1992 and continuing through the currently operating Jason-1 (launched in 2001) and OSTM/Jason-2 (launched in 2008) missions. These measurements provide scientists with critical information about circulation patterns in the ocean and about both global and regional changes in sea level and the climate implications of a warming world. TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 were cooperative missions between NASA and the French space agency, CNES. Additional partners in the Jason-2 mission included NOAA and Eumetsat. Jason-3 continues the international cooperation, with NOAA and Eumetsat leading the efforts, along with partners NASA and CNES. The primary instrument on Jason-3 is a radar altimeter. The altimeter measures sea-level variations over the global ocean with very high accuracy (as 1.3 inches or 3.3 centimeters, with a goal of achieving 1 inch or 2.5 centimeters). These auxiliary data files are used to generate Level-2 products. They include both static tabular data files and dynamic files which change/grow over time. Auxiliary files are produced outside of OSTM, but are used in product development. Filetypes in the Auxiliary data family (J3-AUX) which are produced by the European Center for Medium range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) are restricted by ECMWF to the Jason-3 project team. Additional documentation for Jason-3 data is archived at the NODC at: https://archive.nodc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/AMS/prod/accession/details/118276. The documentation includes metadata in International Standards Organization (ISO) format.