Our Rising Seas

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.

Jason-1 and TOPEX/Poseidon Bookmark

Ocean Dynamic Topography

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

Measuring El Niño & La Niña - JPL Open House '99 Display

Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich fairing logo

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

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...

Sea Level

CNES logo

Ionospheric Total Electron Content

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...

Water Vapor

Wind Speed

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...

Altimeter Applications - JPL Open House '99

Variability of Ocean Dynamic Topography

Jason-1 Pin

Jason-1 Measurement System

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...

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...

Jason-1 JPL Open House '99 Display

Sea Surface Height

Applications of Spaceborne Altimetry

In many communities in the U.S., sea level rise is already a factor in people’s lives in the form of high-tide flooding.