(JPL/NASA) Watching the Winds Where Sea Meets Sky
The ocean covers 71 percent of Earth’s surface and affects weather over the entire globe. Hurricanes and storms that begin far out over the ocean affect people on land and interfere with shipping at sea. And the ocean stores carbon and heat, which are transported from the ocean to the air and back, allowing for photosynthesis and affecting Earth’s climate. To understand all these processes, scientists need information about winds near the ocean’s surface.
NASA’s ISS-RapidScat, launching to the International Space Station this fall, will watch those winds with a tried and true instrument called a scatterometer. Since satellite scatterometers began collecting data in the 1970s, their soundings have become essential to our understanding of Earth’s ocean winds.
(more…)