U.S-French Satellite to Track Sea Levels
Posted on: Tuesday, 20 May 2008, 12:00 CDT
The U.S. and French space agencies are preparing to launch a satellite that will monitor Earth's sea levels to help scientists better study climate change.
The project is a collaboration of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the French space agency and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.
The Ocean Surface Topography Mission, or OSTM, Jason 2 satellite is to be launched June 15 from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. The mission will extend into the next decade the continuous record of sea surface height measurements started in 1992 and extended in 2001 by the Jason 1 mission.
The satellite will continue monitoring trends in sea level rise, one of the most important consequences and indicators of global climate change.
OSTM/Jason 2 will help create the first multi-decadal global record for understanding the vital roles of the ocean in climate change, said project scientist Lee-Lueng Fu of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Data from the new mission will allow us to continue monitoring global sea level change, a field of study where current predictive models have a large degree of uncertainty.
Source: United Press International
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