The international community of scientists working on development and applications of altimetry in the coastal zone met in San Diego on October16-18, 2011, for the 5th Workshop of this Coastal Altimetry series.

The workshop was a great success, with 37 talks, 30 posters and more than 130 participants from 17 different countries. The latest technical advancements in coastal altimetry data processing were showcased alongside new applications that demonstrate the usefulness of the data. A further boost to the discipline is now coming from the availability of high-resolution SAR altimetry data from ESA's CryoSat-2 mission. The community of scientists taking part in the Ocean Surface Topography Science Team meeting (OSTST), later in the week, fully acknowledged that coastal altimetry is now a prominent field of research and application.

The 5th Coastal Altimetry Workshop followed on the successful ones in Silver Spring, U.S.A. (February 2008), Pisa, Italy (November 2008), Frascati, Italy (September 2009) and Porto, Portugal (October 2010). The aim of these workshops is to bring together people dealing with satellite altimetry applied to the Coastal Zone to discuss a range of topics, from data processing through emerging applications to new technologies.

All Presentations and Posters are available here. A full report on the Coastal Altimetry workshop will be available soon. You can see a few pictures of the workshop at http://www.coastalt.eu/news/coastal-altimetry-comes-age-san-diego