December, 2008 SWOT D. Alsdorf Hydrology AGU Townhall 2008 Hydrology Slides funded by: CNES, JPL, NASA, and OSU’s Climate, Water, & Carbon Program
Photo: Larry Smith ~30M Lakes > 1 hectare
Photos: K. Frey, B. Kiel, L. Mertes Downing et al., 2006 Siberia Amazon Ohio
SWOT capability to observe water height Ohio River SRTM Water elevation measurements Courtesy: Michael Durand, OSU In Situ observ- ations from Carlston, 1969; originally by Army Corps of Engineers estimated SWOT
SWOT capability to estimate discharge Courtesy: Elizabeth Clark, UW 1)Expected SWOT height observation accuracy 2)Temporal sampling errors 3)River width Ohio River accuracy estimate based on:
Courtesy: Hyongki Lee, OSU Results from Peace Athabasca Delta lakes, Canada Height errors and areal errors vary with lake area Height errors dominate SWOT ability to observe storage change
SWOT capability to measure global storage change Analysis based on global lake frequency-area distribution by Downing et al., 2006 Courtesy: Sylvain Biancamaria, CNES 10 km x 10 km 1 km x 1 km 250 m x 250 m 25%