SSH and SST - Pacific Ocean

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

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...

Jason-1 Spacecraft Animation

The ocean is responsible for Earth's mild climate and makes life on Earth possible for all creatures.

SSH and SST - Indian Ocean

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.

Recorded live launch broadcast of Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich

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

Sea Surface Height - Global Average from 1993 - 2011.

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...

Decades of Discovery - How altimeters help us every day.

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.

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.

Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Launch footage

QuickTime VR of TOPEX/Poseidon

TOPEX/Poseidon Launch

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

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...

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.

A look at how NASA is dealing with the threat of sea level rise to its coastal infrastructure.

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

Earth’s rising seas are some of the most visible signs of our warming planet. Over the last 23 years, NASA satellite missions have observed a steady rise in global sea levels as polar ice sheets me...

El Niño/La Niña - (12/1996 - 01/2000)

On Aug. 26, 2015 at 9:30 a.m. PT, NASA hosted a media teleconference to discuss recent insights on sea level rise and the continuing challenge of predicting how fast and how much sea level will ris...

The Argo stop-motion animation aims to inspire children (and adults) to engage with marine science. It is quirky, fun and informative at the same time. The animation explains what an Argo float is,...