SWOT Simulator for Ocean Science

This software simulates SWOT observations of sea surface height (SSH) that can be applied to an ocean general circulation model (OGCM), allowing the exploration of ideas and methods to optimize information retrieval from the SWOT Mission in the future. From OGCM SSH inputs, the software generates SWOT-like outputs on a swath along the orbit ground track and adds measurement error and noise, which are generated according to technical characteristics published by the SWOT project team. Not designed to directly simulate the payload instrument performance, this SWOT simulator aims at providing statistically realistic outputs for the science community with a simple software package released as an open source in Python. The software is scalable and designed to support future evolution of orbital parameters, error budget estimates from the project team and suggestions from the science community.