Seeing Earth’s Coastlines: SWOT Satellite Provides Higher-Resolution Data than Ever Before

NASA has monitored Earth’s water from space for decades, but there’s always been one stubborn observational gap: coastal sea level. This data, while critical to coastal communities as they plan for the potentially devastating effects of rising seas, has been difficult to measure because of its variability – but the Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission, also known as SWOT, is giving scientists higher-resolution data than ever before.

SWOT measures the height of nearly all water on Earth’s surface from space and provides one of the most detailed, comprehensive views of our planet’s oceans and freshwater lakes and rivers. After more than a year in Earth orbit, the mission has provided detailed information about coastal flooding, our warming oceans, and global sea level rise.

Join us for a live discussion with Dr. Ben Hamlington to learn how SWOT is #TrackingWorldWater to fill in our current gap of information regarding water at coastlines around the globe.

SWOT is a collaboration between NASA and the French space agency, Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory leads the U.S. component of the project.

You can learn more about SWOT at https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/ and head to https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/SWOT?sect... to access SWOT's data that is available to the public.

Resources referenced in the talk:
6:40 - More on global sea level: https://go.nasa.gov/3vmZXHi
23:01 - SWOT's KaRIn instrument gets global view of sea levels:    • See This Space-Based View of Global S...  
24:44 - SWOT monitors El Niño off the coast of Peru: https://go.nasa.gov/3Q47LEW
27:09 - SWOT monitors warming waters along California coast: https://go.nasa.gov/3PqnFs1
27:53 - SWOT satellite catches coastal flooding during California storms: https://go.nasa.gov/3TjIQzf
29:51 - SWOT data helps calculate depth of temporary lake in Death Valley: https://go.nasa.gov/49Euhes

Speaker:
Dr. Ben Hamlington, Research Scientist in the Sea Level and Ice Group, Team Lead of the NASA Sea Level Change

Host:
Nikki Wyrick, Office of Communications and Education, NASA JPL

Co-host:
Jocelyn Argueta, Earth Public Engagement, NASA JPL

(Original Air Date: April 18, 2024)