1. Jorge Vazquez Universidad del Norte Barranquilla, Columbia, Nov 14, 2012 How satellites have revolutionized our understanding of the Earth

3. The Past Oceanographers: Benjamin Franklin Matthew Fontaine Maury

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7. Animation Courtesy of Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa California

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13. Historic Sea Level Rise Plots by Robert A. Rohde for Global Warming Art: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/ ~ 0.25 mm/yr ~ 2.0 mm/yr Recent rates of sea level rise are 100 times larger than historic rates. 9000 years 120 years

14. Tide Gauge Observations [Church and White, 2006] ~ 8 inches (20 cm)

15. Tide Gauge Observations Average Rate ~ 1.8 mm/year [Church and White, 2006] ~ 8 inches (20 cm)

16. Tide Gauge Observations 0.8 mm/year 2.0 mm/year 3.2 mm/year [Church and White, 2006] ~ 8 inches (20 cm)

17. Satellite Observations

18. Sea Level Rise from Altimetry

19. Heating or Melting? addition of heat 25% (2”) Thermal Expansion addition of freshwater + 75% (6”) Add Mass Ice Melt = Total sea level rise 100% (8”)

20. Potential Contributions Thermal Expansion: ~1 meter (3 feet) Sea Ice Melt Does NOT raise sea level Melting Land ice does! So does iceberg calving

22. Greenland losing mass [Wouters et al., 2008] 362 Gt = 1 mm GMSL 186 Gt/year = 0.5 mm/year sea level rise

23. Antarctica losing mass [Velicogna, 2009] [Riva et al., 2009]

24. The Ocean Conveyor Belt

25. What’s up with the ice sheet?

26. Evacuate the Country!!!

27. The Great Ocean Conveyor Belt

28. The Great Conveyor Belt

29. Both Arctic Sea Ice and Greenland Ice Sheet are shrinking

30. The FUTURE NASA launches Aquarius Satellite June 10, 2011 The FUTURE NASA launches Aquarius Satellite June 10, 2011 Will measure Ocean Salinity Will measure Ocean Salinity –Important because the Ocean’s drive the global hydrological cycle

31. 31 Instrument Specifications: Radiometer & Scatterometer Footprint size - 62x68, 68x62, 75x100 Footprint size - 76x94, 84x120, 96x156 Orbit 657 km Sun Synchronous Radiometer – Frequency n = 1.413 GHz +/- 25MHz – Wavelength l = c/n ~ 0.212m – L band = 0.39 - 1.55 GHz Scatterometer – Frequency n = 1.26 GHz – Wavelength l = c/n ~ 0.238m - 390 Kilometer swath

32. 32 What Effects Ocean Salinity? Balance between Evaporation and Precipitation: E-P More evaporation salinity increases, more precipitation salinity decreases River outflow: Eg: Amazon adds freshwater to Eastern South Atlantic, salinity decreases Ocean Circulation: Ocean Currents and Eddies move tremendous amount of heat and salt. Smaller scale processes such as entrainment and diffusion Ice melting and freezing: Eg: Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)

33. Measured as grams of salt per 1000 grams of water. In the ocean varies between 32 to 38 parts/thousand.

34. Schematic of Hydrological Cycle

39. Aquarius URLs and information Aquarius URLs and information –http://aquarius.jpl.nasa.gov/AQUARIUS/ http://aquarius.jpl.nasa.gov/AQUARIUS/ –http://aquarius.nasa.gov/ http://aquarius.nasa.gov/ –http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/AQUARIUS/ –http://podaac- www.jpl.nasa.gov/SeaSurfaceSalinity http://podaac- www.jpl.nasa.gov/SeaSurfaceSalinityhttp://podaac- www.jpl.nasa.gov/SeaSurfaceSalinity 39

40. THANK YOU!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!! Questions? Questions?