Watching Our Oceans

QuickTime VR of TOPEX/Poseidon

For NASA JPL engineer Parag Vaze, studying Earth’s rising ocean has been a career three decades in the making.

In many communities in the U.S., sea level rise is already a factor in people’s lives in the form of high-tide flooding.

A key ocean observation satellite has been named after Earth scientist Michael Freilich

Ice covers 10 percent of Earth's surface and helps moderate the planet's temperature.

The joint U.S.-European Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich is the next in a line of Earth-observing satellites that will collect the most accurate data yet on sea level and how it changes over time. With ...

For NASA engineer Shannon Statham, building spacecraft is all about being creative.

Greenland and Antarctica are home to most of the world's glacial ice – including its only two ice sheets – making them areas of particular interest to scientists.

One of the best ways to understand Earth's ocean is from the perspective of space.

Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich will join a long-standing family of Earth observing satellites from NASA and European partners.

El Niño/La Niña - (12/1996 - 01/2000)

Jason-3 Animation

SSH and SST - Pacific Ocean

Sea Surface Height - Global Average from 1993 - 2011.

Here we provide side by side comparisons of Pacific Ocean sea surface height (SSH) anomalies of what is presently happening in 2015 with the Pacific Ocean signal during the famous 1997 El Niño.

Our World: How High is the Ocean?

OSTM/Jason-2 - All instruments plus data animation

Jason-1 Spacecraft Animation

For over 20 years NASA has been tracking the global surface topography of the ocean in order to understand the important role it plays in our daily lives. Climate change is causing our Ocean to war...

Watch the Jason-3 Science Briefing from Friday, Jan 15, 2016 - panelists discussed the science and research of the Jason-3 mission.

The Jason-3 satellite, launched on January 17, 2016, is allowing scientists to continue a 23-year record of crucial ocean monitoring.

NASA Climate Watcher Waves Goodbye

El Niño is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific. The warmer water associated with El Niño displaces colder water in the upper layer of the ocean caus...

NASA and its U.S. and international partners have teamed up to launch a new Earth-observing satellite called Sentinel-6B that will measure sea surface height of most of the planet’s ocean. These ob...

This visualization shows total sea level change between 1992 and 2019, based on data collected from the TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2, and Jason-3 satellites. Blue regions are where sea level ha...