Why SWOT Matters

[02-Jan-19] SWOT is scheduled to map the entire globe between 78° north and south latitude over the course of 3 years. Before it settles into its main orbit, covering Earth's surface every 21 days, the first 90 days of the mission will be flown in a "fast-sampling" phase, revisiting each area once daily. Ocean scientists are invited to contribute ground-based measurements to compare with the satellite data. [17-Oct-18] A device built in the UK by Honeywell, which will form a vital part of the mission to make the first global survey of the world's surface waters and oceans, has been delivered to Thales Alenia Space in France. The UK-built device, known as a duplexer, is a vital component that routes radar signals around the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite. The duplexer will be integrated into a Radio-Frequency Unit by Thales Alenia Space before NASA engineers add it to the KaRin instrument developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. [26-Sep-18] Two of NASA's recently awarded Earth Venture science investigations are highly relevant to SWOT. Marc Simard (JPL) is spearheading an investigation to better understand the natural processes that maintain and build land in major river deltas threatened by rising seas. Thomas Farrar (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) will lead an ocean campaign 200 miles off the coast of San Francisco designed to explore the potentially large influence that small-scale ocean eddies have on the exchange of heat between the ocean and the atmosphere.