SSH and SST - Pacific Ocean

After living in coastal Virginia and seeing the effects of climate change firsthand, Ben Hamlington is now researching sea level rise at NASA JPL.

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.

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.

Recorded live launch broadcast of Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich

SSH and SST - Global

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...

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...

It's hard to "see" sea level rise by just looking at the ocean, but its effects are very real.

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...

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...

Watching Our Oceans

OSTM/Jason-2 - Data/ground track animation

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

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

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

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

Jason-CS/Sentinel-6 - How they will work

TOPEX/Poseidon Instruments

Sea Surface Height - Global Average from 1993 - 2011.

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.

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

TOPEX/Poseidon Ground Tracks

OSTM/Jason-2 - All instruments plus data animation

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

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...