NASA Launches Satellite To Monitor Oceans 55
On Friday, NASA launched the Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2 satellite into orbit to begin a detailed study of ocean currents, sea-surface height, and surface topology. Scientists hope to use the data gathered by Jason 2 in order to better understand weather patterns and global warming. Further details about the mission objectives (PDF) are also available. Quoting NASA's press release:
"Combining ocean current and heat storage data is key to understanding global climate variations. OSTM/Jason 2's expected lifetime of at least three years will extend into the next decade the continuous record of these data started in 1992 by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, or CNES, with the TOPEX/Poseidon mission. The data collection was continued by the two agencies on Jason 1 in 2001. Compared with Jason 1 measurements, OSTM/Jason 2 will have substantially increased accuracy and provide data to within 25 kilometers (15 miles) of coastlines, nearly 50 percent closer to shore than in the past."
Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok I'm really not trolling here and I'm sure I'm exposing my vast ignorance on this topic, but does this seem incredibly underwhelming to anyone else?
As a long-distance sailor, and surfer (Score:5, Interesting)
The topic of "rogue waves" has gotten much [slashdot.org] more [technologyreview.com] interest in the past few years. They have been determined to be both larger and more prevalent than thought before. Perhaps Jason will complement the data from the EU mission to help with statistics, and maybe even predictions...
One can hope.
Re:"Global warming" must exist first... (Score:5, Interesting)
One statistical outlier doesn't make a trend. One cold winter doesn't undo decades of warmer than average years.
And taking you at face value on the Antarctic gaining mass, if you think through the implications it is completely consistent with a warming planet. The Antarctic is still very very cold, and warming means an increase in humidity and precipitation, i.e. a larger ice sheet building over the central regions of the continent. That region still hasn't warmed sufficiently to cause large-scale melting.
Ice sheets are complicated things. Warming in general causes increased melting at the edges (near the lower lattitudes) and increased precipitation over the center. It's just a question of how fast it's adding mass at the center vs. losing it at the sides, but ultimately as it gets warmer the whole thing will melt at some temperature.