The computation of the mean sea surface profiles was
performed with all the available data. Except for the
Jason-2 mission, the periods considered for this study correspond
to complete years. This is the best configuration to
average altimeter time series, as it prevents from including
any seasonal effect in the mean sea surface profiles. In the
case of the Jason-2 mission, two years and a half of measurements
were used. Even with less cycles than the
Jason-1 mission (7 years of data on the nominal orbit),
the Jason-2 mean profiles are quite stable in this area, as shown in Fig. 2