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5 Ways Studying Water Will Help Us Better Understand Earth

Studying our home planet is just as powerful as exploring what’s beyond it.

Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) is a joint mission developed by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency and the UK Space Agency. It will track water on more than 90% of Earth’s surface and help communities, scientists, and researchers better understand this finite and vital resource. And it’s launching this month!

So how will SWOT help us better understand Earth? Here are 5 ways.

This is a GIF of SWOT in space as it passes over Earth and simulates the satellite becoming operational. The SWOT satellite deploys components that were stored for the launch, including extending its solar panels and deploys its booms and antennas.

SWOT will address some of the most pressing climate change questions of our time.

An important part of predicting our future climate is determining at what point Earth’s ocean water slows down its absorption of the excess heat in the atmosphere and starts releasing that heat back into the air, where it could accelerate global warming. SWOT will provide crucial information about this global heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, enabling researchers to test and improve future climate forecasts.

The satellite will also offer insights to improve computer models for sea level rise projections and coastal flood forecasting.

Data from SWOT will additionally help scientists, engineers, water managers, and others better monitor drought conditions in lakes and reservoirs and improve flood forecasts for rivers.

This GIF is a short timelapse of a tree in the middle of a wetland type environment. As the timelapse begins water slowly starts to increase and by the end of the timelapse, the area around the tree is completely flooded.

SWOT is the first satellite mission that will observe nearly all water on the planet’s surface.

SWOT will measure the height of water in Earth’s lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and the ocean, giving scientists the ability to track the movement of water around the world.

SWOT’s eye in the sky will provide a truly global view of the water on more than 90% of Earth’s surface, enriching humankind’s understanding of how the ocean reacts to and influences climate change along with what potential hazards – including floods – lie ahead in different regions of the world.

This GIF was created from video footage of Alaska water ways and roads. It is a collection of scenes throughout Alaska including a large waterway next to road, a car traveling over a bridge, as well as various large rivers and creeks.

SWOT will see Earth’s water in higher definition than ever before.

Because everything is better in HD 😉, SWOT will view Earth’s ocean and freshwater bodies with unprecedented clarity compared to other satellites, much like a high-definition television delivers a picture far more detailed than older models. This means that SWOT will be able to “see” ocean features – like fronts and eddies – that are too small for current space-based instruments to detect. Those measurements will help improve researchers’ understanding of the ocean’s role in climate change.

Not only will the satellite show where – and how fast – sea level is rising, it will also reveal how coastlines around the world are changing. It will provide similar high-definition clarity for Earth’s lakes, rivers, and reservoirs, many of which remain a mystery to researchers, who aren’t able to outfit every water body with monitoring instruments.

Animation of SWOT as it flies over Florida and conducts its measurements of the water below. SWOT will collect data across a 75-mile (120-kilometer) wide swath, with a gap in the center for an altimetry track. This is an animation that shows the collection of data over the state of Florida, which is rich with rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Green and pink lights move downwards from the satellite to Earth, mimicking the satellite collecting data over the ocean and freshwater areas.

SWOT data will be used to help make decisions about our daily lives and livelihoods.

As climate change accelerates the water cycle, more communities around the world will be inundated with water while others won’t have enough. SWOT data will be used to monitor drought conditions and improve flood forecasts, providing essential information to water management agencies, disaster preparedness agencies, universities, civil engineers, and others who need to track water in their local areas. SWOT data also will help industries, like shipping, by providing measurements of water levels along rivers, as well as ocean conditions, including tides, currents, and storm surges.

This GIF shows catastrophic flooding in various communities throughout the world. The first scene includes several houses with water up to the roofs, almost covering the entire neighborhood. The next scene shows a road that is no longer accessible due to water flooding and covering entire segments of the road.

Finally … SWOT will pave the way for future Earth missions.

With its innovative technology and commitment to engaging a diverse community of people who plan to use data from the mission, SWOT is blazing a trail for future Earth-observing missions. SWOT’s data and the tools to support researchers in analyzing the information will be free and accessible. This will help to foster research and applications activities by a wide range of users, including scientists, resource managers, and others who in the past may not have had the opportunity to access this kind of information. Lessons learned from SWOT will lead to new questions and improvements for future missions, including our upcoming Earth System Observatory, a constellation of missions focused on studying key aspects of our home planet.

This is video footage of the SWOT satellite in a Thales Alenia Space clean room facility in Cannes, France. The shot is from faraway so you can see the entirety of the satellite and sheer size – 16.4 feet (5 meters) tall. Below the satellite is a group of about 15 team members admiring the satellite.

Keep track of the mission here. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

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akshayk

8 years ago

What Will Come of Pokémon Go?

Instead of taking big screens across the country by storm, this summer’s blockbuster has people glued to much smaller ones.

Launched at the beginning of July by San Francisco-based software development company Niantic, Inc., Pokémon Go has quickly become one of the most popular smartphone apps of all time. Data analytics firm Similar Web reported that in its first week alone, the app had been installed on nearly 11 percent of all android phones in the United States, and surpassed Twitter’s daily usage shortly thereafter.

Beyond being a viral sensation, the app’s success has striking implications for a number of industries. Willy Shih is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Management Practice in Business Administration at Harvard Business School and spent 28 years in industry at IBM, Digital Equipment, Silicon Graphics, Eastman Kodak, and Thomson SA prior to coming to HBS in 2007. A member of the School’s Technology and Operations Management unit, Professor Shih closely studies disruptive technology and technological strategy, and took time to analyze the Pokémon Go phenomenon below.

What does Pokémon Go’s success mean for augmented reality going forward? Is AR the next big thing?

Willy Shih: Microsoft Windows users in the late 80s and early 90s might remember that Microsoft came up with a Solitaire game as a way of introducing people to how to use a mouse. I think Pokémon Go is going to have the same effect, albeit unintended, of educating people about augmented reality. It’s a very clever introduction to the technology and beautifully illustrates the merging of the cyber and the physical. We’ve seen other things work similarly before—Google Glass, and heads-up displays in aircraft and high-end cars—but those only caught on in limited ways. Where they superimposed information on top of what you were already seeing, Pokémon Go superimposes geospacial information in an integrated way, allowing the game creators to put these monsters in exact locations and in physical spots of significance. That’s really quite different.

If you were in charge, how would you monetize Pokémon Go?

WS: With so many people looking for spots to collect these things, the platform’s ability to pull traffic to particular locations is innovative and completely unique, and represents a huge financial opportunity. It was just announced, for example, that McDonald’s is going to sponsor the game’s rollout in Japan. I imagine it could fundamentally change the face of things like sponsorship and mobile advertising. We haven’t begun to see the most outrageous applications of this yet.

DAY 2937

Jalsa, Mumbai Apr 15/16, 2016 Fri/Sat 12:34 am

Life is that excitement when a drawer, withdrawn and neglected for years, gets your attention and it opens almost impulsively .. impulsively because you had not meant to open it but you did .. curiosity, time lapse, non visited location in the home .. several thoughts and reasons dribble their way through the mind ! But what really remains is the flash of time that goes by, the reasons for the letter or the paper, the comments on it, mostly the comments .. those inspirational words, those inspiring words, of behaviour and deeds and circumstances that run past your limited vision now since, time to be devoted to them has no time at all ..

Its like :

“ Nothing in the world can take the place of PERSISTENCE ; TALENT will not, nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent ; GENIUS will not, unrewarded genius is almost a proverb ; EDUCATION alone will not ; the world is full of educated derelicts

PERSISTENCE AND DETERMINATION alone are omnipotent !!”

an important quote from a learned source … and this, from a prominent stage actor in the West :

“I’m not so embarrassed when I’m talking as when I read what I have said. I hope what I do as an actor is interesting but I do find it difficult to talk about it.”

Hmmm … sounds familiar .. hehah .. and this :

“Our business is a very monastic life and you have to find happiness within its framework.”

and this :

“ It takes courage to analyze your body as it goes downhill.”

and finally this :

“Jean Françios Revel , said ‘la CONNAISSANCE INUTILE’

What we need to be aware of is the fear today of ‘perversion of words’ and ‘approximative information’ …”

All noted and read and written by me in my hand in ink and diary in the period of mid 80′s ..

My love as ever ..