https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/veteran-ocean-satellite-to-assume-added-role

[sue4e3]

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/veteran-ocean-satellite-to-assume-added-role

A venerable U.S./European oceanography satellite mission with NASA participation that has expanded our knowledge of global sea level change, ocean currents and climate phenomena like El Niño and La Niña will take on an additional role next month: improving maps of Earth’s sea floor.

The Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 satellite, a partnership among NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the French Space Agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), marked its ninth year in orbit on June 20. Designed to fly three to five years, OSTM/Jason-2 has now completed more than 42,000 trips around our planet, contributing to a database of satellite altimetry that dates back to the launch of the U.S./French Topex/Poseidon satellite in 1992.

Over the past nine years, OSTM/Jason-2 has precisely measured the height of 95 percent of the world’s ice-free ocean every 10 days. Since its launch in June 2008, it has measured a 1.6-inch (4-centimeter) increase in global mean sea level, which has been rising at a rate of about 0.12 inches (3 millimeters) a year since satellite altimetry records began in 1993. It has also tracked changes in regional sea level; monitored the speed and direction of ocean surface currents; enabled more accurate weather, ocean and climate forecasts; and observed multiple El Niño and La Niña events. Since October 2016, it has operated in a tandem mission with its successor, Jason-3, launched in January 2016, doubling coverage of the global ocean and improving data resolution for both missions.

[PJMcK]

1. This is great science!

These scientists are doing remarkable work. Imagine the intensive skill sets, the engineering and the brilliant applications to be able to figure out how to measure such small changes in our environment! They can assess a 3 millimeter per year change in the height of the oceans. Remarkable.

Of course, Republicans will deny these facts with false equivalencies. They and their decrepit leader, Trump, are self-destructive idiots.