[ad_1]
A satellite due to be released from California later this month will monitor sea level rise and provide scientists studying how global change affects the world’s waters with other vital details.
According to Climate.gov, melting ice has already caused sea levels to rise by about 8 inches since 1880. However, the trend is accelerating. NASA added that Earth’s oceans absorbed the vast majority of excess heat. Humans have generated about a quarter of the extra carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels.
After NASA’s former director of Earth Science, the latest Sentinel-6 satellite, nicknamed Michael Freilich, will calculate sea levels around the world for the next five years.
A second satellite of the same type would take up a position at that stage, providing scientists with accurate data on Earth’s oceans for a full decade. The project is a partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency.
The water level begins to rise, said Josh Willis, the mission project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He told NPR that the space agency is changing the climate and raising sea levels higher and higher.
The latest in a series of sea level monitoring missions dating back to the early 1990s is the satellite. With two satellites at the forefront over ten years, the Sentinel-6 project is an example of how much demand there is for accurate, high-resolution climate change results.
“Sea level continues to rise and we can’t stop measuring it,” says Josh Willis, mission project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Every year, every decade, we are changing the climate and raising the sea level higher and higher.”
(Photo: Paolo Nespoli – ESA / NASA via Getty Images)
The International Space Station and the space shuttle Endeavor orbit the Earth during Endeavor’s latest sortie into space
How will NASA measure sea levels from space?
Sentinel-6 can orbit up to 800 miles and use radar to calculate ocean crust. A radar pulse is transmitted to Earth by an instrument on a satellite. The radar bounces off the ocean surface and returns to the spacecraft.
Scientists would calculate the distance of the ocean’s surface from the satellite by calculating how long it takes the radar to descend and back and allowing humidity in the environment to slow the radar down.
In other words, the satellite will inform Earth scientists how big the oceans are and how height varies over time.
“We know the oceans are rising due to human-induced interference with the climate. And, to see that, you really have to see sea level rise across the planet,” says Willis. “This is what this satellite does best.”
Effects of rising waters
Rising water affects the coastal regions of the United States destructively. Ocean water in the Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific coasts has flooded sewer networks, flooded highways and wiped entire island cities from life.
However, residents further from the coasts are often affected by the higher, cooler water. What exists in the oceans should not remain in the oceans. Tides and ocean temperatures, for example, control the atmosphere and fish stocks.
Knowing the sea level, Thompson said experts would have an indication of how much the ocean has expanded due to warming.
Scientists really know nothing about how the waters could change in the coming decades. The climate forecasts are explicit that the sea level will start to gradually increase and as the Earth gets warmer, the sea level rise will intensify. But it needs accurate and continuous data from both satellites and tide indicators on Earth to see what it would be like locally.
READ ALSO: Ireland will plant over 400 million trees by 2040
Find out more news and information about Climate change in Science Times.
.
[ad_2]
Source link
