SWOT might transform a significant enchancment over measurements by earlier satellites. “Instead of a ‘pencil beam’ moving along the Earth’s surface from a satellite, it’s a wide swath. It’ll provide a lot more information, a lot more spatial resolution, and hopefully better coverage up close to the coasts,” says Steve Nerem, a University of Colorado scientist who makes use of satellite tv for pc information to review sea-level rise and isn’t concerned with SWOT. And KaRIn’s swath-mapping expertise is a brand-new approach, he says. “It’s never been tested from orbit before, so it’s kind of an experiment. We’re looking forward to the data.”

SWOT has different devices in its toolkit too, together with a radar altimeter to fill within the gaps between the swaths of information KaRIn collects, a microwave radiometer to measure the quantity of water vapor between SWOT and the Earth’s floor, and an array of mirrors for laser-tracking measurements from the bottom.

New satellite tv for pc information is vital as a result of the way forward for sea-level rise, floods, and droughts could also be worse than some consultants beforehand forecast. “Within our satellite record, we’ve seen sea-level rise along US coastlines going up fast over the past three decades,” says Ben Hamlington, a sea-level rise scientist at JPL on the SWOT science workforce. The charge of sea-level rise is actually accelerating, particularly on the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the United States. “The trajectory we’re on is pointing us to the higher end of model projections,” he says, a degree he made in a research final month within the journal Communications Earth & Environment. 

Hamlington sees SWOT as a boon for mapping rising sea waters and for researchers learning ocean currents and eddies, which have an effect on how a lot atmospheric heat and carbon oceans absorb. The satellite tv for pc may also help scientists who mannequin storm surges—that’s, when ocean water flows onto land.

The new spacecraft’s information can have some synergy with many different Earth-observing satellites already in orbit. Those embody NASA’s Grace-FO, which probes underground water by way of gravity fluctuations, NASA’s IceSat-2, which surveys ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice, and commercial flood-mapping satellites that use artificial aperture radar to see by clouds. It additionally follows different altimeter-equipped satellites, just like the US-European Jason-3, the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite tv for pc, China’s Haiyang satellites, and the Indian-French Saral spacecraft.

Data from these satellites has already proven that a point of sea-level rise, excessive floods, storms, and droughts are already baked into our future. But we’re not doomed to local weather catastrophes, Hamlington argues, as a result of we are able to use this information to fend off essentially the most excessive projected outcomes, like those who trigger speedy glacier or ice sheet soften. “Reducing emissions takes some of the higher projections of sea-level rise off the table,” he says. “Since catastrophic ice sheet loss will only occur under very warm futures, if we can limit warming going forward, we can avoid worst-case scenarios.”