Geosat crossover analysis in the tropical Pacific. I - Constrained sinusoidal crossover adjustment

A new method (constrained sinusoidal crossover adjustment) for removing the orbit error in satellite altimetry is tested (using crossovers accumulated in the first 91 days of the Geosat non-repeat era in the tropical Pacific) and found to have excellent qualities. Two features distinguish the new method from the conventional bias-and-tilt crossover adjustment. First, a sine wave (with wavelength equaling the circumference of the Earth) is used to represent the orbit error for each satellite revolution, instead of the bias-and-tilt (and curvature, if necessary) approach for each segment of the satellite ground track. Secondly, the indeterminacy of the adjustment process is removed by a simple constraint minimizing the amplitudes of the sine waves, rather than by fixing selected tracks. Overall the new method is more accurate, more efficient, and much less cumbersome than the old. The idea of restricting the crossover adjustment to crossovers between tracks that are less than certain days apart in order to preserve the large-scale long-term oceanic variability is also tested with inconclusive results because the orbit error was unusually nonstationary in the initial 91 days of the GEOSAT mission.