Small ocean swirls may have an outsized effect on climate, NASA satellite shows A NASA-led satellite mission has suggested that swirls and eddies in the middle of the ocean have a bigger influence on Earth's climate system than scientists previously realized. Measuring changes in the Earth’s oceans has been a huge challenge for scientists owing to their vastness and inaccessibility. While satellite data …
So this is their last hoorah before they sink beneath the (accurately plotted) waves themselves, with an Orange Anchor tied around their ankles.
According to the conspiracy theorists, of course! Alternatively, what does NOAA stand for? Or even this lot-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Environmental_Satellite,_Data,_and_Information_Service
which for some reason, wiki lumps under NASA rather than NOAA..
> What does NOAA stand for?
It used to stand for exemplary science, something that Trump just won't stand for:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/climate/noaa-research-budget-cuts.html
Although, you no doubt believe that is just more conspiracy theorist nonsense.
Although, you no doubt believe that is just more conspiracy theorist nonsense.
Quite possibly. But anyway-
The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) was created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to operate and manage the United States environmental satellite programs, and manage the data gathered by the National Weather Service and other government agencies and departments.
So perhaps this project should be lead by NOAA. After all they're the agency tasked with looking down, whereas NASA's is looking up. Except Obama for some reason tasked NASA with navel gazing and looking down instead of up. So then a lot of duplication and overlap between NASA, NOAA and other agencies. NASA's been doing some interesting stuff wrt Earth and cloud monitoring, but that's really NOAA's job. So maybe a refocus and shuffling of staff & budgets to have NASA focusing on space, space weather and Moon or Martian climates rather than Earth.
Especially given climate 'science' is supposedly settled. But that's also been one of the best things about the climate hype, ie it's meant that useful instruments have been launched that give us a better understanding of the world we live on.. Even though that sometimes unsettles the supposedly settled 'science'.
NASA is good at putting together (with various partners) machines with new and interesting sensors, in interesting orbits. They can use their experience to get this satellite up and running, verifying that the data being generated makes sense.
When things are shown to be working and that the satellite can actually do its job, with some new science results, NASA can pass the feed over to Oceanographers. As the satellite is still itself an experiment, NASA are good hands to look after it.
Now that the satellite and its sensors have been field tested, new copies of similar models may be handled solely by NOAA, who are interested in the data but not really in fiddling around to get it.
> they're (NOAA) the agency tasked with looking down, whereas NASA's is looking up.
Trying to separate the two on that basis is just weird and all rather pointless.
NASA hasn't ever been just tasked with looking up and away from Earth (remind us, what does the first A stand for) - and NOAA's Oceanography expertise will be useful once we delve into Europa (looking to a future with fingers crossed).
NASA is good at putting together (with various partners) machines with new and interesting sensors, in interesting orbits. They can use their experience to get this satellite up and running, verifying that the data being generated makes sense.When things are shown to be working and that the satellite can actually do its job, with some new science results, NASA can pass the feed over to Oceanographers. As the satellite is still itself an experiment, NASA are good hands to look after it.
But is that really true? So the article says-
To help address the problem, in December 2022 NASA launched its Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite,
Which isn't strictly true. It isn't NASA's satellite, and NASA didn't launch it. So it's a joint project between NASA, the French, Canadians and even the UK, with the satellite being built by Thales and launched by SpacX. Then operated by NASA and CNES, with the data presumably being shared on first pass amongst the sponsors.
Which might be an indictment on US science budgets and an inability for the US to fly solo, or just pragmatism and cost/knowledge sharing in the pursuit of science. Hydrology is of course rather important to anyone with water. No idea how costs were split, or workloads. The UK has the UKSA, but that isn't very well funded and can't afford to invest in many satellites.
new copies of similar models may be handled solely by NOAA, who are interested in the data but not really in fiddling around to get it.
I'm fairly sure their scientists would be very interesting in fiddling around to get it. Especially if it's their budget that is funding the experiment. So I would assume they'd take the lead on exactly what they want to measure, then sub out work to other scientists and engineers to design instruments and make them fly.
NASA hasn't ever been just tasked with looking up and away from Earth (remind us, what does the first A stand for)
Administration! No, wait, that's the last one. And perhaps where budget shuffles, cuts and reallocation of wooden dollars ends up. Maybe NASA has too many administrators and those will face the axe. Or NASA scientists working on this project will end up at NOAA. Who knows? But-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Isaacman#Administrator_of_NASA
Over nearly three hours of testimony, Isaacman presented a vision of revitalizing NASA with a "mission-first" culture focused on efficiency, innovation, and strategic leadership in space.
He hasn't even got his feet on the desk and already the losers club are crying that the sky is falliing. There might be a provisional budget, but spending priorities haven't beeen set, let alone dunked in the pork barrel that gave the US the Senate Launch System. Maybe that will get cut. Maybe Isaacman will look closely at how much pork SpacX has been getting, and why Musk isn't on Mars already. Either way, any actual budget(s) have to run the gauntlet of Congress first.
Cool stuff indeed. I like how this submesoscale SWOT resolves the "nonlinear internal solitary wave packets [λ ≈ 1-10 km, ampl ≈ 30 cm] radiating eastward away from the plateau" (Fig. 1), that previously manifested only as a spatially averaged blob on the mesoscale DUACS.
Idem for the 8.0 kW m⁻¹ solitary waves [λ ≈ 5 km, ampl ≈ 20 cm] on Fig. 3 and ditto for the superb eddy of Fig. 4 [20 cm anomaly, 1 m s⁻¹] that coincides spatially with localized ocean surface temperature and chlorophyll a concentration anomalies.
If considering these fine-scale features leads to an order of magnitude improvement in the computation of energy fluxes (eg. vs 0.8 kW m⁻¹ from coherent M₂ internal tides, for Fig. 3) then that SWOT is a really good investment. Way worth it, imho!
If anyone is like me, quite confused after reading the Nature article about what SWOT is up to and how it differs from conventional satellite altimetry (Jason), there's a much clearer summary of the mission and the instrumentation at https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/overview/ and the linked pages. Basically SWOT has a wider field of view than conventional satellite altimeters and flies in slightly uncoventional orbit(s) designed to optimize its mission of surveying Earth's surface water altitudes in detail. Conventional satellite altimetry is more focused on obtaining an accurate height estimate for global sea level
Conventional satellite altimetry is more focused on obtaining an accurate height estimate for global sea level
I think that's all part of the fun. Like global sea level can be a fairly meaningless marketing term because it isn't, and isn't really globally relevant. Plus being able to cross-reference data from other projects like GRACE to better understand sea surface conditions & effects.
Before Climate Change appeared we would see hurricanes forming in the southern Atlantic and then flow towards and into the Gulf of Mexico so hurricanes were common every year around Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, once the storms arrived in the gulf they would sail north into the states. But that hasn't been happening much since Climate Change arrived, storms are still created but now just tend to move north up the Atlantic and moving north in the Atlantic they seem to be just local storms, not hurricanes so much.
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Well done NASA and congratulations to all concerned.
TBH I've always wondered why photogrammetry isn't used for this sort of problem.
with 70% of the whole planet covered by ocean it should be obvious that you can hide a lot of weather effects on (and near) that surface.
This information might (and I emphasise "might") be a start to narrowing the atmospheric lifetime of CO2, which IIRC is currently 300-1000 years.
Which is quite a large error bar.
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