SWOT satellite will bounce radar off water bodies to give scientists a new window into climate change and the global water cycle.
“If SWOT does what we think it’s going to do, it’s going to change the face of hydrology,” says Colin Gleason, a geographer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an author on both studies.Similar advances are expected at sea, where SWOT is expected to provide high-resolution measurements that will allow scientists to track currents, swirling eddies and the ebb and flow of tides.
SWOT will give scientists their first 3D view of eddies, for example, and will be able to detect perturbations around 10 kilometres wide — one-tenth the scale of the best measurements that are currently available, says Morrow. Even these small features are crucial to understanding and predicting the climate, she says.
An international consortium involving the United States, France, Australia and others is planning field expeditions at 18 ocean sites around the world next year. These will help to calibrate the SWOT data against on-site measurements under a variety of ocean conditions. “We’re really really excited, but the proof is in the pudding,” Morrow says. “We’re waiting to see what information comes out.”
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