In a joint venture with SpaceX, NASA has launched a new, very expensive satellite to help combat rising global temperatures.
What’s happening?
According to Spaceflight Now, SpaceX launched the second of two joint NASA-European environmental research satellites in mid-November.
The new satellite, Sentinel-6B, was part of a billion-dollar project to measure long-term changes in sea level around the globe. It’s equipped with cloud-penetrating radar, designed to measure sea level changes by tracking how long it takes for beams shot at the surface of the ocean to return.
“Sentinel-6B will contribute to a multi-decade dataset that is … key to helping improve public safety, city planning and protecting commercial and defense interests,” NASA said in its “need to know” statement on the launch, per Spaceflight Now.
The satellite will also measure temperature and humidity levels at both low and high altitudes in the atmosphere, using a tool that analyzes how broadcast signals from the satellites are impacted by the atmosphere.
Why is this satellite important?
The seas have been rising at an alarming rate as our planet warms. Coastal regions are under serious threat; coastlines and beaches have been submerged or washed away; and cities and countries are desperately fighting the rising tides that threaten to flood and overwhelm them. With these issues come unpredictable weather patterns, which further exacerbate issues and can lead to drought, flooding, and severe storm damage around the globe.
In the Pacific, the island nation of Tuvalu is in the midst of the largest planned migration in human history as its home is submerged by rising seas, while Panama is trying to sort out a similar mass migration of indigenous peoples from an archipelago off its coast.
What’s being done about rising seas?
Researchers are continuing to collect data on the rising seas to help us better understand how to combat the problem in the short term.
“Sentinel 6B is the latest in a line of missions stretching over three decades, keeping an uninterrupted watch over our planet’s sea surface height, finding patterns and advancing our understanding of planet Earth,” Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division, said, per Spaceflight Now.
She said the data provided by the Sentinel-6 satellites “underpins navigation, search and rescue and industries like commercial fishing and shipping. These measurements form the basis for U.S. flood predictions for coastal infrastructure, real estate, energy storage sites and other assets along our shoreline.”
But along with the research, it’s important that we address the root concerns behind our rising seas: the continuing rise of global temperatures, caused by heat-trapping pollution. While extreme weather events aren’t new, scientific consensus is that the human-induced climate crisis supercharges them, making them more dangerous.
Reducing our carbon output and finding ways to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are going to be essential to stemming the tide of our rising seas.
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