Watching Our Oceans

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

For NASA scientist Severine Fournier, studying our planet knows no borders.

Our planet is changing. Our ocean is rising. And it affects us all. That’s why a new international satellite will continue the decades-long watch over our global ocean and help us better understand...

The ocean-observing Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 21, 2020 at 12:17 p.m. EST

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

Decades of Discovery - How altimeters help us every day.

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

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

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

Sea Surface Height - Global Average from 1993 - 2011.

B-roll for media. The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich is an Earth-observing satellite that will collect data on sea level and how it changes over time. By measuring sea surface height, scientists world...

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...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 4 at Vandenberg Air Force Base carrying the Jason-3 spacecraft. Liftoff was at 10:42 a.m. PST (1:42 p.m. EST).

TOPEX/Poseidon Ground Tracks

NASA and its partners announced the renaming of the mission, previously known as Sentinel-6A/Jason-CS.

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.

On the left is Sea Surface Height Anomalies (SSHA) relative to the sea level mean (1993-2018). On the right is Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) with the sea level trend as the straight line. The data a...

TOPEX/Poseidon Launch

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

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

SSH and SST - Indian Ocean

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.

Launching aboard the joint U.S.-European Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite is NASA’s next instrument that will help improve weather forecasting.

This video discusses the water cycle, which is the movement of water around the Earth, and its importance to life. Changes to the water cycle affect climate and vice versa.