Improved satellite altimetry to study sea levels in the Baltic

The current knowledge of the water circulation in the Baltic Sea comes essentially from in situ observations and models. The Baltic+ SEAL (Sea Level) Project aims at providing a consistent description of the sea level variability in the Baltic Sea area in terms of seasonal and inter-annual variation and put the results in relationship with the forcing associated with this variability, using a developed dedicated coastal altimetry product. The objective is to create and validate a novel multi-mission sea level product in order to improve the performances of the current state-of-the-art of the ESA efforts in this topic: the Sea Level Climate Change Initiative (SL_cci). In this sense, this project can actually be considered as a laboratory in which advanced solutions in the pre-processing and post-processing of satellite altimetry can be tested before being transferred to global initiatives, such as the future phases of SL_cci.