Facilitating Inversion of the Error Covariance Models for the Wide-Swath Altimeters
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Please, find attached my comments.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper presents a novel, efficient method for approximating the interferometer geometry and orientation errors for a wide-swath altimeter, supporting the efficient and accurate psuedo-inversion of the error correlation matrix. This is useful for assimilation of these observations into numerical models.
The description and presentation quality and generally good and clear, and the article is well referenced. I would recommend acceptance of this article based on the following 2 minor revisions:
1) I would suggest revising the title of the article to something more specific, that makes clear that the article presents a method.
2) The text of the article does not directly refer to Figure 2. I recommend that Figure 2 is refered to, explained and discussed within the text of the article.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
The method of assessment of respective errors for a wide-swath satellite altimeter is presented. The similarity of the error distribution across the track allows for facilitating the optimization procedure and make more computationally efficient. The paper provides the mathematical background of the method and results of its tests with the Surface Water and Ocean Topography simulator. The paper is clearly written and surely will find its reader.
The referee appreciates the only modification of the text to make the number of the readers more numerous. Comments to the key assumption of the cross-track spectra should be extremely useful to realize what does it mean ``with a reasonable accuracy'' and how this accuracy can affect the final result.
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
Review for “On the Error Covariance Models for the Wide-Swath Altimeters” by Yaremchuk et al.
The paper presents a method for improving the sea surface height accuracy from the wide-swath satellite altimeter observations. The method provides an approximation to the interferometer geometric and orientation errors, which improves computational efficiency of the altimeter data assimilation schemes as well. The paper is well written and will be of interest to the altimeter satellite community. I think that the paper is ready for publication after a couple of minor editing.
- Line 42: I think it should be 1 ≤ q ≤
- Equation 6: does p denote a priori?
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
All my comments have been properly addressed.
