The regional calibration method developed by NOVELTIS
consists in estimating the altimeter bias at the mission
crossover points situated around an in situ calibration site.
This site may not be necessarily dedicated to this satellite
mission. The distance between the calibration site and the
crossover points can reach several hundreds of kilometres,
at least in the case of the North-Western Mediterranean
Sea where the mesoscale ocean dynamics is rather weak,
with a variability of about 10 cm, to be compared with
the several tens of centimetres on the Western European
shelves, for example