A modified empirical retracker for lake level estimation using Cryosat-2 SARin data

Abstract

Satellite radar altimetry is an important technology for monitoring water levels, but issues related to waveform contamination restrict its use for rivers, narrow reservoirs, and small lakes. In this study, a novel and improved empirical retracker (ImpMWaPP) is presented that can derive stable inland lake levels from Cryosat-2 synthetic aperture radar interferometer (SARin) waveforms. The retracker can extract a robust reference level for each track to handle multi-peak waveforms. To validate the lake levels derived by ImpMWaPP, the in situ gauge data of seven lakes in the Tibetan Plateau are used. Additionally, five existing retrackers are compared to evaluate the performance of the proposed ImpMWaPP retracker. The results reveal that ImpMWaPP can efficiently process the multi-peak waveforms of the Cryosat-2 SARin mode. The root-mean-squared errors (RMSEs) obtained by ImpMWaPP for Qinghai Lake, Nam Co, Zhari Namco, Ngoring Lake, Longyangxia Reservoir, Bamco, and Dawa Co are 0.085 m, 0.093 m, 0.109 m, 0.159 m, 0.573 m, 0.087 m, and 0.122 m, respectively. ImpMWaPP obtains the lowest mean RMSE (0.175 m) over the seven lakes, indicating that it extracts lake levels well during icing and no-ice periods, and is more suitable for lakes frozen in winter.