Assessment of the GPS buoy accuracy for altimeter sea surface height calibration

There are two calibration methodologies for altimeter sea surface height, tide gauge methodology and GPS buoy methodology. GPS buoy methodology need an accuracy GPS buoy which has been manufactured with GPS receiver. This article introduces in detail the assessment of the accuracy of GPS buoy by the numerical simulation and tide gauge. The simulation results show that the roll angles of manufactured GPS buoy is less than 10° and the heave rate is close to 1, which meet the challenge of altimeter sea surface height calibration on the sea experiment condition. And finally used the 4 time in-situ accuracy testing experiments, the accuracy of GPS buoy to measure water level height was accessed. The results show that the bias is 7.40cm with 0.55cm standard error. Through assessment, it can be conclude that the manufactured GPS buoy can be used in the altimeter sea surface height calibration.