Watching Our Oceans

Sea levels across the globe are rising as a result of a changing climate — and the rate at which they are rising is accelerating. NASA Science Live was recorded Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020, and featured...

Growing up in landlocked Zimbabwe, NASA JPL engineer Shailen Desai was far from the ocean but still experienced its effects on the climate. Now, he is contributing to an international effort to tra...

Watch the Jason-3 Mission Briefing from Friday, Jan 15, 2016 - panelists gave an overview of the Jason-3 mission.

TOPEX/Poseidon Instruments

Sea level rise is an indicator that our planet is warming. When ice on land, such as mountain glaciers or the ice sheets of Greenland or Antarctica, melts, that water contributes to sea level rise.

SSH and SST - Pacific Ocean

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

Earth’s global sea levels are rising – and are doing so at an accelerating rate.

TOPEX/Poseidon Ground Tracks

TOPEX/Poseidon Launch

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

NASA Climate Watcher Waves Goodbye

Changing conditions in the Pacific have stirred up Earth’s largest ocean and redistributed its heat, piling up warm waters along U.S. Western shores and raising sea level in the process.

It’s not only water processes that play a role in global sea level rise – ground movements can play a significant role as well.

QuickTime VR of TOPEX/Poseidon

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...

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.

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.

This animation illustrates the evolution of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies (relative to the respective normal state) in the Pacific Ocean associated with the 2015-2016 El Niño.

Sea Level Isn't Level - Why it matters

Oceans of Climate Change

Fathoming the forces that determine global sea levels can be daunting. We present a guide to the basics of ocean surface topography.

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...

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

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