One Earth satellite TV for PC can see plankton that photosynthesize. The opposite measures water floor top. Collectively, their knowledge reveals how sea life and the ocean are intertwined.
The ocean is an engine that drives Earth’s climate patterns and local weather and sustains a considerable portion of life on the planet. A brand new animation based mostly on knowledge from two lately launched missions—NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) and the worldwide Floor Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellites—provides a peek into the guts of that engine.
Bodily processes, together with localized swirling water lots known as eddies and the vertical motion of water, can drive nutrient availability within the ocean. In flip, these vitamins decide the placement and focus of tiny floating organisms, often known as phytoplankton, that photosynthesize, changing daylight into meals. These organisms haven’t solely contributed roughly half of Earth’s oxygen for the reason that planet fashioned, but additionally assist economically vital fisheries and assist in drawing carbon out of the environment, locking it away within the deep sea.
“We see nice alternatives to dramatically speed up our scientific understanding of our oceans and the numerous positions they play in our Earth system,” stated Karen St. Germain, director of the Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This visualization illustrates the potential we’ve got after we start to combine measurements from our separate SWOT and PACE ocean missions. Every one of these missions is important by itself. However, bringing their knowledge collectively—the physics from SWOT and the biology from PACE—provides us a fair higher view of what’s occurring in our oceans, how they’re altering, and why.”
A collaboration between NASA and the French house company CNES (Centre Nationwide d’Études Spatiales), the SWOT’ satellite TV for PC launched in December 2022 to measure the peak of almost all water on Earth’s floor. It’s offering one of the vital detailed, complete views of the planet’s ocean and its freshwater lakes, reservoirs, and rivers.
Launched in February 2024, NASA’s PACE satellite TV for PC detects and measures the distribution of phytoplankton communities within the ocean. It additionally gives knowledge on the scale, quantity, and kind of tiny particles known as aerosols in Earth’s environment, in addition to the peak, thickness, and opacity of clouds.
“Integrating data throughout NASA’s Earth System Observatory and its pathfinder missions SWOT and PACE is a thrilling new frontier in Earth science,” stated Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, program scientist for SWOT and the Built-in Earth System Observatory at NASA Headquarters.
The animation above begins by depicting the orbits of SWOT (orange) and PACE (mild blue), then zooms into the North Atlantic Ocean. The primary knowledge to seem was acquired by PACE on Aug. 8. It reveals concentrations of chlorophyll-a, an important pigment for photosynthesis in crops and phytoplankton. Gentle inexperienced and yellow point out greater concentrations of chlorophyll-a, whereas blue alerts decrease concentrations.
Subsequent is sea floor top knowledge from SWOT, taken throughout a number of passes over the identical area between Aug. 7 and 8. Darkish blue represents heights that might be lower than the implied sea floor top, whereas darkish orange and crimson signify heights greater than the implied. The contour strains that stay as soon as the colour fades from the SWOT knowledge point out areas of the ocean with the identical top, very similar to the strains on a topographic map point out areas with the identical elevation.
The underlying PACE knowledge then cycles by way of a number of teams of phytoplankton, beginning with picoeukaryotes. Lighter inexperienced signifies better concentrations of this group. The ultimate two teams are cyanobacteria—a number of the smallest and most plentiful phytoplankton within the ocean—known as Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus. For Prochlorococcus, lighter raspberry colours signify greater concentrations. Lighter teal colours for Synechococcus signify better quantities of the cyanobacteria.
The animation exhibits that greater phytoplankton concentrations on Aug. 8 tended to coincide with areas of decreased water top. Eddies that spin counterclockwise within the Northern Hemisphere have a tendency to attract water away from their hearts. This ends in comparatively decreased sea floor heights within the heart that draw up cooler, nutrient-rich water from the deep ocean. These vitamins act like fertilizer, which might increase phytoplankton progress in sunlit waters on the floor.
Overlapping SWOT and PACE knowledge allows a greater understanding of the connections between ocean dynamics and aquatic ecosystems, which might help enhance the administration of sources reminiscent of fisheries since phytoplankton kind the bottom of most meal chains within the sea. Integrating these sorts of datasets additionally helps to enhance calculations of how much carbon is exchanged between the environment and the ocean. This, in flip, can point out whether or not areas of the ocean that take up extra atmospheric carbon are altering.
The SWOT satellite TV for PC was collectively developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian House Company (CSA) and the UK House Company. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed for the company by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. part of the venture. For the flight system payload, NASA supplied the Ka-band radar interferometer (KaRIn) instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. The Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Built-in by Satellite tv for pc system, the twin-frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia House), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (along with Thales Alenia House and with assistance from the UK House Company), the satellite tv for pc platform, and floor operations had been supplied by CNES. The KaRIn high-power transmitter meeting was supplied by CSA.
To be taught extra about SWOT, go to:
The PACE mission is managed by NASA Goddard House Flight Heart, which additionally constructed and examined the spacecraft and the Ocean Shade Instrument, which collected the information proven within the visualization. The satellite TV for PC’s Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter #2 was designed and constructed by the College of Maryland, Baltimore County, and the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration was developed and constructed by a Dutch consortium led by the Netherlands Institute for House Analysis, Airbus Defence, and House Netherlands.
To be taught extra about PACE, go to:
Jacob Richmond (for PACE)
NASA’s Goddard House Flight Heart, Greenbelt, MD.
jacob.a.richmond@nasa.gov
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang (for SWOT)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
Jane. J. Lee@jpl.nasa.gov and Andrew Wang@jpl.nasa.gov
2024-169
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Sourcing information and pictures from NASA.gov/information
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