CEOS EO HANDBOOK – INSTRUMENT SUMMARY
- IRIS
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Full Name
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Interferometric Radar Altimeter for Ice and Snow
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Status
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Being developed
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Instrument Agencies
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ESA , COM
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Maturity
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Instrument Type
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Radar altimeters 
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Geometry
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Nadir-viewing
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Instrument Technology
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Radar altimeter
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Sampling
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Other
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Data Access
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Open Access
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Data Format
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Measurements and Applications
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Ku-band Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar Altimeter (with added Ka-band channel for snow depth retrieval and in combination with AMR-CR MW Radiometer for ice&snow classification and wet troposphere correction) to cover the needs for continuous monitoring of sea ice
thickness and land ice elevation measurement after Cryosat-2, with enhanced performance.
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Resolution Summary
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up to 0.5 m (along track resolution with fully-focused SAR processing). Various degrees of averaging depending on surface
[Best Resolution: 0.5m]
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Swath Summary
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N/A
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Accuracy Summary
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Uncertainties ≤23 arcsec on Angle of Arrival; ≤3 cm on freeboard; ≤15 cm on sea ice thickness; ≤2 m on land ice surface elevation (≤0.5m for terrain with slope <0.2 degrees); ≤3.5 cm on sea surface height.
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Waveband Summary
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Ku-band and Ka-band
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| Ka-Band (26.5 to 40 GHz) |
| Ku-Band (12.5 to 18 GHz) |
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Instrument Measurements
Measurements Overview
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Instrument Missions
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