SWOT could turn out to be a huge improvement over previous satellite measurements. “Instead of a ‘pencil beam’ traveling along the Earth’s surface from a satellite, it’s a wide band. Steve Nerem, a University of Colorado scientist who uses satellite data to study sea level rise and was not involved in the study, said it would provide more information, spatial resolution. higher and hopefully better coverage near the coast. SWOT. And KaRIn’s swath mapping technology is an entirely new technique, he said. “It’s never been tested from orbit before, so it’s like an experiment. We are looking forward to the data.”
SWOT also has other tools in its toolkit, including a radar altimeter to fill in the gaps between the data bands KaRIn collects, a microwave radiometer to measure the amount of water vapor between the SWOT and Earth’s surface and an array of mirrors for laser beams. -Track measurements from the ground.
The new satellite data is important because the future of sea level rise, floods and droughts could be worse than some experts have previously forecast. “In our satellite records, we have seen sea level rise along the US coast rise rapidly in three years,” said Ben Hamlington, a sea level rise scientist at JPL on the SWOT science group. past decade. The rate of sea level rise is in fact increasing rapidly, especially on the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the United States. “The trajectory we are on is leading us to a higher level of model predictions,” he said, a point he made in a study last month in the journal Earth & Environment Communication.
Hamlington sees SWOT as a boon for mapping sea level rise and for researchers studying ocean currents and eddies, which affect the extent of sea-level rise. atmospheric heat and carbon absorbing ocean. The satellite will also assist scientists in modeling storm rising water—that is, when sea water flows inland.
The new spacecraft’s data will have some synergy with the many other Earth observation satellites already in orbit. These include NASA’s Grace-FOgroundwater exploration through gravity oscillations, NASA’s 2 satellite ice satellitesurveying ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice, and commercial flood mapping satellite uses synthetic aperture radar to see through clouds. It also follows other altimeter-equipped satellites, such as the US-European Jason-3, the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite, the Chinese Haiyang satellites and the spacecraft Indo-French Saral universe.
Data from these satellites have shown that to some extent sea level rise, extreme floods, storms and droughts are poised for our future. But we are not doomed to climate catastrophe, argues Hamlington, because we can use this data to combat the most extreme expected outcomes, such as those that cause climate change. change quickly. ice River or ribbons melting. “Reducing emissions would eliminate some of the higher projections of higher sea levels,” he said. “Since severe ice loss will only occur in the very warm future, if we can limit future warming, we can avoid worst-case scenarios.”
