NASA LAUNCHES FIRST GLOBAL SURFACE WATER SURVEY SATELLITE

A SPACEX rocket launched from California caring the US-French satellite designed to conduct the first global survey of the Earth’s surface waters, shedding new light on the mechanics and consequences of climate change.

The Falcon 9 rocket’s payload, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite, or SWOT, incorporates advanced microwave radar technology to collect high-definition measurements of oceans, lakes, reservoirs, and rivers over 90% of the globe.

The data, compiled from radar sweeps of the planet at least twice every 21 days, will be used to enhance ocean-circulation models, bolster weather and climate forecasts, and aid in managing scarce freshwater supplies in drought-stricken regions, researchers say.

One major thrust of the mission is to explore how oceans absorb atmospheric heat and carbon dioxide in a process that naturally regulates global temperatures and has helped to minimize climate change.

Oceans are estimated to have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped in Earth’s atmosphere by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Scanning the seas from orbit, SWOT will be able to precisely measure fine differences in surface elevations around the smaller currents and eddies where much of the oceans’ drawdown of heat and carbon is believed to occur.

Understanding the mechanism by which that happens will help answer a pivotal question: What is the tipping point at which oceans start releasing, rather than absorbing, large amounts of heat back to the atmosphere, thus intensifying global warming?