New Scientific Applications With Envisat Radar Altimeter Iindividual Echoes Over Ocean, Land and Ice.

The ENVISAT Radar Altimeter (RA-2) is the first spaceborne altimeter to provide bursts of up to 2000 un- averaged individual echoes (IE), and for which both amplitude and phase data are available. This paper presents latest findings in our ongoing investigations into the exploitation of these new data products for new scientific applications over the ocean, land and ice surfaces. Analyses of the amplitude of individual echoes bursts already indicate much greater information content and the possibility for much higher spatial resolution over non-ocean surfaces than previously thought possible. More recent investigations of the phase have revealed particularly exciting new avenues of research, including the exploitation of phase fluctuations over the ocean to derive new information on the ocean wave spectrum. Equally unexpected and promising are the new results obtained when exploring the behaviour of the altimeter phase over land and ice surfaces.