Launched in late 2022, and currently in the calibration and validation phase, SWOT will provide images of Earth’s oceans, lakes, rivers and wetlands in higher resolution than ever before, revolutionising global assessments of water resources on land.
Opportunities the SWOT mission will offer
The high resolution sea surface height maps and data provided by SWOT will provide new opportunities for scientific investigation and commercial innovation, including:
- Flood warning and forecasting
- Water resources monitoring and management
- Improved understanding of the dynamics of floodplains and wetlands
Global studies of water resources, including rivers which cross international borders, lake and reservoir storage and river dynamics. Data from the SWOT mission will be available in 2023/24.
These data will include:
- Maps of sea surface height and digital elevation maps of flood plains
- Wave height and wind speed
- Wet troposphere and water vapour content
The full list of datasets can be found on the Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center website.
Instrumentation
- KaRIn, the Ka-band Radar Interferometer, will increase the resolution of images of water on Earth by up to 10 times (see NASA 2023) using two side antenna for a wider swath than previous satellites, totalling 75miles, or 120km (Morrow et al. 2019, Fjørtoft et al. 2014, Fu and Ubelmann 2014). Each major water resource on land will be covered twice every 21 days.
- The Positioning Ocean Solid Earth Ice Dynamics Orbiting Navigator (POSIDEON-3C) is a Jason-class Altimeter which will measure sea surface height between the two KaRIn swaths.
- Finally, the Two-Bean Microwave Radiometer (AMR-S) will allow measurements of water vapour.
- SWOT also carries the DORIS-NG Antenna to receive radio signals, a GPS receiver, and a Laser Retroreflector Assembly to help track the spacecraft from the ground.
Insights
Beth Greenaway, Chair of Space4Climate and the UK Space Agency’s Head of Earth Observation and Climate:
“I’m so proud of the UK expertise enabling SWOT to be built and calibrated. It is a major new climate mission giving unprecedented data across the globe.”
“I encourage Space4Climate members to be ready to analyse and develop the data on Earth’s oceans and inland water for innovative climate services and climate action.”
