TOPEX/Poseidon Instruments

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

Jason-1 Spacecraft Animation

Sea Level Isn't Level - Why it matters

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...

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.

Sea Surface Height 01/2006-04/2010

Global sea level rise is accelerating incrementally over time rather than increasing at a steady rate, as previously thought, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satelli...

Decades of Discovery - How altimeters help us every day.

Oceans of Climate Change

OSTM/Jason-2 - Data/ground track animation

QuickTime VR of TOPEX/Poseidon

OSTM/Jason-2 - All instruments plus data animation

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

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.

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

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...

SSH and SST - Indian Ocean

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...

TOPEX/Poseidon Launch

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.

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,...

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.

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.

To provide scientists with essential information about global and regional changes in the seas, NASA will launch the Jason-3 satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.