In an effort to produce detailed analysis of the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers, an international satellite mission led by NASA was launched in southern California yesterday.
Known simply as “Swot”, short for “surface water and ocean topography”, the radar satellite is designed to “give scientists an unprecedented view of the life-giving fluid covering 70 per cent of the planet by shedding new light on the mechanics and consequences of climate change.”
The SUV-sized satellite was reportedly carried by Falcon 9 rocket, which is “owned and operated by billionaire Elon Musk’s commercial launch company SpaceX.”
Ben Hamlington, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said: “It’s really the first mission to observe nearly all water on the planet’s surface.”
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Swot took 20 years to be developed and it incorporates “advanced microwave radar technology that scientists say will collect height-surface measurements of oceans, lakes, reservoirs and rivers in high-definition detail over 90 per cent of the globe.”
“Scanning the seas from orbit, Swot is designed to precisely measure fine differences in surface elevations around smaller currents and eddies, where much of the oceans’ drawdown of heat and carbon is believed to occur. And Swot can do so with 10 times greater resolution than existing technologies, according to the JPL,” according to Reuters.
Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, Swot’s program scientist at NASA said the mission will help climate scientists answer a key question: “What is the turning point at which oceans start releasing, rather than absorbing, huge amounts of heat back into the atmosphere and accelerate global warming, rather than limiting it.”
On the other hand, Tamlin Pavelsky, NASA’s Swot freshwater science lead believes that “collecting such data was akin to taking the pulse of the world’s water system, so we’ll be able to see when it’s racing and we’ll be able to see when it’s slow”.
