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New NASA satellite mapped the oceans like never before

New NASA satellite mapped the oceans like never before

6 comments

·March 25, 2025
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ixtli

sad to see this sort of research get slowly defunded / privatized

rbanffy

If we say it's unbelievable, that nothing ever came close to this and this is yuge, will they get proper funding?

araes

Opinion, yet somewhere along the line it seems like NASA had the ability taken away to advertise properly.

The article, and the project website have the same issues. [1]

[1] https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ground-systems-and-data/

Three major objectives listed:

  1. Detecting New Ocean Features (double resolution on undersea mountain heights, heat and carbon transport, ocean circulation at 15–25 km)

  2. Enabling Data Applications (?, promote products, facilitate feedback, provide collaborations, design communication strategies)

  3. Assessing Freshwater Resources (time varying water presence, flow, hydrology, and detection of possible water areas currently dry)
Personally, in charge of the project, would have led with the last item (3) and reordered the list as 3, 1, 2. The second objective is so vague it seems like a throw it over the fence objective and hope somebody does something.

Looking, it seems like the project is using interferometric synthetic-aperture radar [2][3][4]. Notably, this is actually rather difficult to tell from their instrument list and data packages. Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) and Microwave Radiometer. Low-Rate (Ocean) Interferogram Data Product, *Radiometer Brightness Temperatures and Troposphere Data Product (including Operational and Interim) [5] The Wikipedia page is quite a bit clearer about the capabilities. [3]

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometric_synthetic-aper...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Water_and_Ocean_Topogr...

[4] https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/flight-systems/

[5] https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ground-systems-and-data/

Lots of other cool stuff that can be done with distant, remote sensing, synthetic-aperture radar, with a 15–25 km resolution. List just from the intro of the Wikipedia article. Geophysical natural hazards (earthquakes), volcanoes and landslides, ice flows (deformation and cracking, glaciers, icebergs) and structural engineering (subsidence and structural stability).

Ex: See the waves of ground oscillation ripple away from each earthquake observed. [6]

[6] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Izmit_in...

Ex2: Ground subsistence in oil fields [7]

[7] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Lost_Hil...

And the data can probably be combined with other space based resources like Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B from ESA. [8]

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinel-1

SWOT’s orbit extends from 78° S to 78° N, covering at least 86% of the globe. SWOT revisits the same path all over the Earth every 21 days in 292 unique orbits. It also has a microwave Radiometer that measures the amount of water vapor between the satellite and Earth's surface. More water vapor means slower radar signals. Probably can do volumetric cloud imaging over the 86% number every 3 weeks. It's a little slow for weather satellites, yet averaged gives a general idea of cloud depth expected during each season on most parts of the Earth.

dakr

"somewhere along the line it seems like NASA had the ability taken away to advertise properly." This is literally true. JPL had its science communication, education, and outreach teams gutted last year. For that small investment in people and programs, the public gets to better understand where their tax dollars are going, more people are aware of and can use the products, and kids can learn and be inspired.

anthk

I hope these can be downloaded under Marble (a libre map tool) soon.

kleiba

MH370?