Sea Ice Retrieval from Cristal: Design, Development and Validation

The Copernicus Polar Ice and Snow Topography Altimeter (CRISTAL) is one of the six Copernicus Expansion Missions currently being implemented by the European Space Agency and the European Commission. The CRISTAL Mission will provide enhanced retrievals of sea ice thickness and freeboard, land ice sheet/glacier elevation, inland water level and ocean surface topography, wave-height and wind speed by measurements from sensors with improved spatial resolution and performance. Throughout this paper, the current status for the design, development and validation of the ESA CRISTAL Level-2 products is described.