ALBATROSS – ALtimetry for BAthymetry and Tide Retrievals for the Southern Ocean, Sea ice and ice Shelves

The ALBATROSS project, led by NOVELTIS in collaboration with DTU, NPI and UCL, is one of the activities funded by ESA in the frame of the Polar Science Cluster, with the objective to foster collaborative research and interdisciplinary networking actions. In this framework, the ALBATROSS project aims to improve knowledge about bathymetry and ocean tides in the Southern Ocean.

The knowledge about ocean tides is at the crossroads of many scientific fields, especially in the polar regions: it has a significant impact on ocean circulation modelling and on the understanding of the coupled dynamical response of the ocean, sea ice and ice shelves system, on the quality and accuracy of sea surface height and sea ice parameter estimates from satellite altimetry, and on the understanding of ice-shelf dynamics, for example.

Today, this knowledge is still limited by several aspects, such as the quality of bathymetry information, the resolution of hydrodynamic models, and the availability of in situ and satellite observations for data assimilation and model validation.

Project objectives

• Improve the knowledge on bathymetry around Antarctica, considering decade-long, most recently reprocessed CryoSat datasets, innovative information on bathymetry gradient location through the analysis of sea ice surface roughness, and the compilation of the best available datasets in ice-shelf regions.
• Improve the knowledge on ocean tides in the Southern Ocean through the implementation of a high-resolution hydrodynamic model based on the most advanced developments in ocean tide modelling, and the assimilation of observations, including tidal retrievals from the most recent and relevant satellite altimetry products.
• Improve satellite altimetry retrievals of sea surface heights and sea ice information thanks to the new tidal model solution.
• Improve the retrievals of ice shelves parameters thanks to the new tidal model solution.
• Share information and knowledge with other polar science initiatives and projects.

The ALBATROSS project ran from 2021 to 2023:

Products

Data samples from the new ALBATROSS tidal atlas are available upon request:

• tidal elevation along CryoSat-2 tracks during the year 2019;
• tidal elevation at the Brunt Halley and Filchner Ronne (R145 and E5) GPS stations;
• tidal elevation at tide gauges in the Kerguelen Islands (8 files at different positions and times);
• tidal amplitude and phase of the K1, K2, M2, N2, O1, P1, Q1 and S2 constituents for 54 tide gauges from the Antarctic Tide Gauge Database.

To request them, contact us.

Publications and communications

2024

• E. Le Merle, C. Belot, E. Fouchet, M. Cancet, O. Andersen, F. Lyard, G. Moholdt, M. Tsamados, M. El Hajj, J. Maton, J. Benveniste, M. Restano, 2024, “ALBATROSS: Advancing Southern Ocean Tide Modelling with High Resolution and Enhanced Bathymetry”, Polar Science, under revision.

2023

• C. Belot, E. Le Merle, O. Andersen, M. Tsamados, G. Moholdt, F. Lyard, M. Restano, J. Benveniste, ALBATROSS: Improving the Bathymetry and Ocean Tide Knowledge in the Southern Ocean with Satellite Observations, poster at AGU 2023, San Francisco, 11-15 December 2023.
• C. Belot, O. Andersen, M. Tsamados, G. Moholdt, E. Le Merle, F. Lyard, M. Restano, J. Benveniste, ALtimetry for BAthymetry and Tide Retrievals for the Southern Ocean, Sea ice and ice Shelves – The ESA ALBATROSS project, ESA-EC Joint ESSI, Frascati, Italy, 22-24 November 2023.
• C. Belot, E. Le Merle, O. Andersen, M. Tsamados, G. Moholdt, F. Lyard, M. Restano, J. Benveniste, ALBATROSS: Improving the Bathymetry and Ocean Tide Knowledge in the Southern Ocean with Satellite Observations, poster at OSTST 2023, Puerto Rico, 7-11 November 2023.
• O. Andersen, S. K. Rose, M. G. Hart-Davis, Polar Ocean Tides Revisited: Arctic and Antarctic ocean tides from CryoSat-2, 28th IUGG, Berlin, Germany, 11-20 July 2023.
• C. Belot, O. Andersen, M. Tsamados, G. Moholdt, F. Lyard, M. Restano, J. Benveniste, ALBATROSS: ALtimetry for BAthymetry and Tide Retrievals for the Southern Ocean, Sea ice and ice Shelves, Coastal Altimetry Workshop 13, Cadiz, Spain, 6-10 February 2023.

2022

• T. Johnson, M. Tsamados, J.-P. Muller, J. Stroeve, 2022, “Mapping Arctic Sea-Ice Surface Roughness with Multi-Angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer”, Remote Sensing 14, no. 24: 6249. doi:10.3390/rs14246249
• M. Cancet, O. Andersen, M. Tsamados, G. Moholdt, F. Lyard, M. Restano, J. Benveniste, ALBATROSS: Improving bathymetry and ocean tide knowledge in the Southern Ocean with satellite observations, poster at AGU 2022, Chicago, 12-16 December 2022.
• M. Cancet, O. Andersen, G. Moholdt, M. Tsamados, T. Johnson, F. Lyard, M. Restano, J. Benveniste, ALBATROSS: ALtimetry for BAthymetry and Tide Retrievals for the Southern Ocean, Sea ice and ice Shelves, ESA Polar Science Cluster Collocation Meeting, Frascati, Italy, 23-25 November 2022.
• M. Cancet, O. Andersen, M. Tsamados, G. Moholdt, F. Lyard, M. Restano, J. Benveniste, ALBATROSS: ALtimetry for BAthymetry and Tide Retrievals for the Southern Ocean, Sea ice and ice Shelves, OSTST 2022, Venice, Italy, 31 October-4 November 2022.
• M. Cancet, O. Andersen, M. Tsamados, G. Moholdt, F. Lyard, M. Restano, J. Benveniste, ALBATROSS: Improving bathymetry and ocean tide knowledge in the Southern Ocean with satellite observations, poster at Oceans from Space 2022, Venice, Italy, 24-28 October 2022.
• M. Cancet, G. Moholdt, F. Lyard, O. Andersen, M. Tsamados, M. Restano, J. Benveniste, ALBATROSS: Improving bathymetry and ocean tide knowledge in the Southern Ocean, poster at the Cryosphere 2022 Symposium, Reykjavik, Iceland, 21-26 August 2022, and at the SCAR-RINGS meeting, Tromsø, Norway, 27-30 June 2022.
• M. Cancet, O. Andersen, M. Tsamados, G. Moholdt, F. Lyard, M. Restano, J. Benveniste, ALBATROSS: Improving the bathymetry and ocean tide knowledge in the Southern Ocean with satellite observations, poster at the ESA Living Planet Symposium 2022, Bonn, Germany, 23-27 May 2022.
• T. Johnson, M. Tsamados, J.-P. Muller, J. Stroeve, “Mapping Arctic sea ice surface roughness with Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer”, poster at the ESA Living Planet Symposium 2022, Bonn, 23-27 May 2022, and EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, 23-27 May 2022.

2021

• M. Cancet, F. Lyard, O. Andersen, M. Tsamados, G. Moholdt, J. Benveniste, ALBATROSS, ALtimetry for BAthymetry and Tide Retrievals for the Southern Ocean, Sea ice and ice Shelves, ESA Polar Science Cluster Collocation virtual meeting, 15-17 September 2021.
• M. Cancet, E. Fouchet, E. Sahuc, F. Lyard, O. Andersen, G. Dibarboure, N. Picot, J. Benveniste, Improvement of the Bathymetry and Regional Tidal Modelling in the Arctic Ocean, CryoSat 10th Anniversary Conference, virtual event, 14-17 June 2021 (announcement of the launch of the ALBATROSS project).