The Rings of Uranus Shine Bright in Stunning New JWST Image

The James Webb Space Telescope has taken a stunning new image of the ice giant world Uranus. But what stands out most is the dramatic new view of the planet’s rings, which show up as never before with JWST’s infrared eyes.

Instead of being faint and wispy, the rings show up brilliantly. Additionally, bright, luminous features in the planet’s atmosphere show how an extensive storm system at the north pole of this planet getting larger and brighter.

But you’ll also want to see the full-frame image view, which also shows the six largest of Uranus’ 27 known moons. And, as we’ve become accustomed to seeing in JWST images, several distant background galaxies. Yes, every JWST image is a Deep Field!

This wider view of the Uranian system with Webb’s NIRCam instrument features the planet Uranus as well as six of its 27 known moons (most of which are too small and faint to be seen in this short exposure). A handful of background objects, including many galaxies, are also seen. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI).

This is JWST’s first detailed look at Uranus, and it demonstrates the observatory’s unprecedented sensitivity. Uranus’ faint dusty rings have only ever been imaged by two other facilities: the Voyager 2 spacecraft as it flew past the planet in 1986, and the Keck Observatory with advanced adaptive optics in 2007. Unlike the rings of Saturn, which are very bright and composed of water ice, the rings of Uranus are relatively dark – even though they show up brightly in this new infrared image. Instead of containing dust, the rings seem to be made up of larger chunks, measuring 0.2 to 20 meters across.

This zoomed-in image of Uranus, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) Feb. 6, 2023, reveals stunning views of the planet’s rings. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI).

Uranus has 13 known rings and 11 of them are visible here. NASA says that some of these rings are so bright in this new image that they appear to merge into a larger ring. Nine are classed as the main rings of the planet, and two are the fainter dusty rings (such as the diffuse zeta ring closest to the planet) that weren’t discovered until Voyager 2’s visit. Scientists expect that future Webb images of Uranus will reveal the two faint outer rings that were discovered with Hubble during the 2007 ring-plane crossing.

The large bright storm is growing slowly as the planet approaches the peak of summer in its northern hemisphere. Of course, Uranus is tilted on its side, and so the north pole is can be found where the equator would be on our Solar System’s other planets.

It takes Uranus takes 84 years to orbit the Sun, and currently, it is late spring for the northern pole. The planet’s northern summer will be in 2028. If you recall in the Voyager 2 image, below) from its 1986 flyby, the planet’s atmosphere appeared clear and nearly featureless. At that time,  it was summer at the south pole. The south pole is now on the ‘dark side’ of the planet, out of view and facing the darkness of space.

Uranus as seen by NASA’s Voyager 2. Credit: NASA/JPL

The Space Telescope Science Institute said this infrared image from JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) combines data from two filters at 1.4 and 3.0 microns, which are shown here in blue and orange, respectively. The planet displays a blue hue in the resulting representative-color image.

Also, compare what Voyager 2 saw for Uranus’ rings, versus what JWST is showing us today:

Uranus rings, photographed by NASA Voyager 2 in 1986 as it approached the plane of the Uranian ring system. Credit: NASA/JPL

Scientists say that studying the rings can help us understand more about Uranus, including helping to map the planet’s interior.

The post The Rings of Uranus Shine Bright in Stunning New JWST Image appeared first on Universe Today.

Brightest Gamma-ray Burst Shines Light on Milky Way Structure

The brightest gamma-ray burst ever seen in 2022 still puzzles astronomers.

The more researchers look at a recent record-setting event, the stranger it gets.

The story begins on the evening of October 9^th, 2022, when NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift orbiting observatory detected a strong X-ray outburst. The source was in the direction of the constellation of Sagitta the Arrow along the galactic plane, suggesting a source in our own Milky Way galaxy. Follow-up observations from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope and the Earth-based European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope however, soon revealed that the source was much more distant, emanating from a gamma-ray burst lying beyond our galaxy. This outburst only appeared to have happened along our line of sight as seen through the plane own galaxy from our Earthbound perspective.

Astronomers soon realized they had an unprecedented opportunity to witness a rare event, and exploit it for science. Dubbed GRB 221009A, the outburst added a full gigawatt of power—equivalent to the output of a terrestrial power station—to the Earth’s upper ionosphere. Other spacecraft across the solar system to include the joint NASA/ESA Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission, Gaia, ESA’s Solar Orbiter, BepiColombo and ESA’s XXM-Newton were all witnesses to the event across the spectrum.

In fact, GRB 221009A was briefly bright enough for amateurs to catch it, though there’s no evidence that any lucky imagers had indeed spotted the outburst. The afterglow actually lingered in the x-ray and gamma-ray spectrum for some time.

The location of GRB 221009A in the sky. Stellarium

Follow-up on GRB 221009A

Now, astronomers have released further observations of the event, and recently revealed findings from observations of the event on March 28, 2023 at the 20^th Meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.

“This has been a very eye-opening event,” says Alicia Rouco Escorial (ESA- Research Fellow) in a recent press release. “We have been very lucky to witness it.”

Redshift ultimately nailed the GRB’s tremendous distance at z=0.151, pegging the burst at a current distance of 2.4 billion light years away, having occurred 1.9 billion years ago. For context, this was at the tail-end of the Great Oxidation Event on Earth in the Proterozoic Eon. The discrepancy between dating such extreme cosmological distances occurs because the Universe itself is expanding during the intervening time.

A Bizarre Gamma-ray Burst

But what was it? Gamma-ray bursts are highly energetic events. Gamma-ray bursts were first detected when the U.S. launched the Vela satellite series starting in 1963, meant to detect terrestrial bursts from nuclear testing. The best working theory is that GRBs are emitted from supernovae or neutron star mergers. An event as energetic as GRB 221009A is thought to only happen once every few thousand years, leading astronomers to refer to it as a BOAT—Brightest of All Time.

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope sees GRB 221009A. NASA

The burst actually illuminated 20 dust clouds in our own galaxy, giving astronomers a one-time chance to estimate the distance and dust grain composition of these dust clouds along our line of sight. The burst energy from GRB 221009A traveled at the speed of light for nearly two billion years before encountering the first dust cloud in our Milky Way Galaxy ‘only’ 60,000 years ago, and interacting with the last one about a 1,000 years ago. These distance interaction can be seen in the perspective of the concentric rings in XMM-Newton observations.

GRB 221009A: looking back through time. ESA

But things get stranger still. Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope have scoured the region of the outburst and thus far… turned up nothing beyond the afterglow. If GRB 221009A was a supernova explosion, the resulting black hole quickly devoured any remaining debris.

Hubble’s view of the afterglow (circled) from GRB 221008A. NASA/HST/STScI

“That’s weird,” says astronomer Andrew Levan (Radbound University-Netherlands) in a recent press release. “…and it’s still not totally obvious what it means.”

Though the mystery remains, events such a GRB 221009A will continue to shed light on the cutting edge of modern astrophysics.

The post Brightest Gamma-ray Burst Shines Light on Milky Way Structure appeared first on Universe Today.

We Now Have a Map of all 85,000 Volcanoes on Venus

A new map created with decades-old radar imagery from NASA’s 1990’s Magellan mission shows the locations of a whopping 85,000 volcanoes on Venus. The detailed map shows where the volcanoes are, how they’re clustered, and how their distributions compare with other geophysical properties of the planet such as crustal thickness.

This comprehensive study of Venus will help planetary scientists answer many outstanding questions about the planets’ geological history, such as why doesn’t it have plate tectonics like Earth? Was it ever habitable, and if so, for how long?

Sapas Mons, a large volcano on Venus, is about 400 km in diameter. It was imaged by the Magellan spacecraft, with a light source coming from the left side of the image. (Image courtesy of JGR Planets)

This is the second major finding from archival Magellan mission data, as just a few weeks ago scientists announced they found evidence of recent active volcanism on Venus. The authors of this new paper, graduate student Rebecca Hahn, and Paul Byrne, an associate professor of earth and planetary sciences, both from Washington University in St. Louis, say their new map can help locate the next active lava flow on Venus, and more.

“This paper provides researchers with an enormously valuable database for understanding volcanism on that planet — a key planetary process, but for Venus is something about which we know very little, even though it’s a world about the same size as our own,” said Byrne, in a press release.

It has long been known that volcanism has been a major, widespread process on Venus. And even if 85,000 volcanoes on Venus sounds like a large amount, Hahn said it is probably a conservative number. She believes there are hundreds of thousands of additional geologic features that have some volcanic properties lurking on the surface of Venus. However, they’re just too small to have been picked up by Magellan’s synthetic-aperture radar (SAR).

Building this global map was tedious work, as Hahn pored through planetary radar scans captured by Magellan. On Twitter, Byrne said this took years of work by Hahn. But she also took advantage of new technology.

“It was tedious, but I had experience using ArcGIS software, which is what I used to build the map,” Hahn said. “That tool wasn’t available when these data first became available back in the ’90s. We came up with this idea of putting together a global catalog because no one’s done it at this scale before.”

Image of “pancake volcanoes” located in the Eistla region, taken by the Magellan space probe. Credit: NASA/JPL

In building this global map, the researchers found that Venus is home to thousands of volcanic landforms, distributed across virtually the entire planet. The volcanoes range in size from much less than 5 km (3 miles) to well over 100 km (60 miles) in diameter. However, 99% of Venus’ volcanoes are smaller than 5 km (3 miles) in diameter.

“Although there are volcanoes across almost the entire surface of the planet, there seem to be relatively fewer volcanoes in the 20–100 km [12-60 mile] diameter range, which may be a function of magma availability and eruption rate,” the researchers wrote in their paper — (which is free to read online until early May 2023.)

While Venus is nearly the same size and composition of Earth, it doesn’t have plate tectonics so all Venus’ internal heat likely emerges through its volcanoes.

How does the amount of volcanoes on Venus compare with Earth? Right now, there are about 1,350 potentially active volcanoes on Earth, but the amount under the ocean is not well known. We also don’t know how many volcanoes have been active over Earth’s history. Of course, Venus is without oceans and without weathering to change planet’s surface. But we do know that more than 80 percent of the Earth’s surface–above and below sea level–is of volcanic origin.

The new Venus volcanoes dataset is hosted at Washington University and publicly available for other scientists to use.

“We’ve already heard from colleagues that they’ve downloaded the data and are starting to analyze it — which is exactly what we want,” Byrne said. “Other people will come up with questions we haven’t, about volcano shape, size, distribution, timing of activity in different parts of the planet, you name it. I’m excited to see what they can figure out with the new database!”

The post We Now Have a Map of all 85,000 Volcanoes on Venus appeared first on Universe Today.

China Tests a Stirling Engine in Orbit

The China National Space Agency (CNSA) has made considerable progress in recent years with the development of its Long March 5 (CZ-5) rocket and the completion of its Tiangong-3 space station. The agency also turned heads when it announced plans in June 2021 to create an International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) that would rival the Artemis Program. On top of all that, China upped the ante when it announced later that month that it also had plans to send crewed missions to Mars by 2033, concurrent with NASA’s plans.

As part of their growing efforts to become a major power in space, which includes human exploration, China recently announced the completion of the first in-orbit test of a Stirling thermoelectric converter. The Shenzou-15 mission crew performed the test aboard Tiangong-3, and it was the first successful verification of the technology in space. This technology is also being investigated by NASA and is considered a technological solution to the challenges of space exploration, especially where long-duration stays and missions to locations in deep space are concerned.

Similar to how hydroelectric dams generate power, a Stirling unit converts heat into electrical energy through a series of piston-driven magnets. These pistons rely on a fuel source to generate heat, pushing the magnets back and forth through a coil of wire, generating electrical current. This process is known as the Stirling Cycle, which is more efficient than solar-powered systems and conventional batteries. Compared to other power systems, it is also lightweight, has a simple structure, a quick start-up cycle, and produces minor vibrations and low noise.

All of this makes the technology appealing to spacecraft engineers and mission planners, who see it as a more sustainable means for providing power to spacecraft and surface habitats. On the one hand, it can reduce their dependence on solar energy, which is limited by solar cell efficiency and is not always accessible in certain environments. Around the Moon’s South Pole-Aitken Basin, where multiple agencies plan to build research stations before the end of the decade (including China’s ILRS), a lunar night lasts fourteen days.

The Stirling power converter was developed by the Lanzhou Institute of Physics at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST). It was transported aboard the space station by the Shenzou-15 crew and installed in the equipment cabinet in the Mengtian lab module. As the China Global Television Network (CGTN) reported, three in-orbit experiments were carried out in the lab module before the test run. The converter produced a stable power supply throughout, reportedly achieving a level of thermoelectric conversion efficiency that reached “an advanced international level under the same isothermal ratio.”

When paired with a nuclear reactor as a power source, Sterling engines could allow for long-duration stays on the Moon and Mars, augmenting solar power, batteries, fuel cells, and other conventional power sources. NASA is currently researching the technology as part of its Kilopower Reactor Using Sterling Technology (KRUSTY) experiment, which evolved from previous efforts to develop nuclear power applications for space exploration. NASA and DARPA recently announced a partnership to test a prototype nuclear thermal propulsion system in space (scheduled for 2027).

Artist’s impression of four KRUSTY generators providing power to an outpost on the surface of Mars. Credit: NASA/STMD

Shortly after that, the UK Space Agency (UKSA) announced they had contracted with Rolls-Royce to develop nuclear systems for space exploration, which could power a future lunar base. These and other attempts to realize next-generation power and propulsion systems are part of a growing effort to realize the next great leap in space exploration. They also reflect an undeniable truth about the modern space age: it’s an international affair characterized by competition and cooperation.

Further Reading: China Global Television Network

The post China Tests a Stirling Engine in Orbit appeared first on Universe Today.

This JWST Image Shows Gravitational Lensing at its Finest

One of the more intriguing aspects of the cosmos, which the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has allowed astronomers to explore, is the phenomenon known as gravitational lenses. As Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity describes, the curvature of spacetime is altered by the presence of massive objects and their gravity. This effect leads to objects in space (like galaxies or galaxy clusters) altering the path light travels from more distant objects (and amplifying it as well). By taking advantage of this with a technique known as Gravitational Lensing, astronomers can study distant objects in greater detail.

Consider the image above, the ESA’s picture of the month acquired by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The image shows a vast gravitational lens caused by SDSS J1226+2149, a galaxy cluster located roughly 6.3 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Coma Berenices. The lens these galaxies created greatly amplified light from the more distant Cosmic Seahorse galaxy. Combined with Webb‘s incredible sensitivity, this technique allowed astronomers to study the Cosmic Seahorse in the hopes of learning more about star formation in early galaxies.

Closer galaxies appear bright and blue-white in the image, while the more distant galaxies appear dimmer and reddish. This is caused by redshift, where the expansion of space between a distant object and the observer lengthens the wavelength, shifting it towards the red end of the spectrum. Where the more distant galaxies line up with the lenses in the foreground, they appear as red arcs because of how the lenses warp the coming from them. The SDSS J1226+2149 galaxy cluster and the resulting lens can be seen in the lower right as bright white spots (which indicate bright elliptical galaxies).

The Cosmic Seahorse galaxy is the stretched-out red arc in the vicinity of the lens, appearing much brighter and thicker than the others. Like many previous releases by the JWST team, this image was part of a campaign that follows up on previous observations made with the venerable Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The image was captured by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Webb’s primary near-infrared camera, as part of a program designed to study the earliest stages of star formation in distant galaxies.

This program is consistent with a major science objective for the JWST: to push the boundaries of astrophysics and cosmology by observing how galaxies formed in the early Universe (ca. 13 billion years ago). By comparing this data to observations of galaxies in more recent epochs, astronomers can track how the Universe has evolved over time, which will help resolve some enduring cosmological mysteries. In particular, astronomers want to know how quickly stars formed in the early Universe and to characterize the environments in early galaxies that gave rise to new stars.

Based on our current understanding of galactic evolution, the first generation of stars in the Universe (Population III stars) were composed entirely of hydrogen and helium. These stars slowly created heavier elements (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silica, iron, etc.) in their interiors through nuclear fusion, then dispersed them when they went supernova and blew off their outer layers. This seeded the interstellar medium (ISM) of our galaxy with minerals and metals that (along with hydrogen and helium) formed subsequent generations of stars (Population II and I).

Studying early galaxies will allow astronomers to test our models of galactic evolution and learn more about how galaxies changed over time. These observations will provide rich datasets for the astronomical community, allowing various investigations into cosmic phenomena. They will also demonstrate the capabilities of Webb as it peers farther back into the Universe than any observatory has ever seen. And to top it off, the images are a source of inspiration for people who are privy to the most detailed observations of the cosmos ever made.

Further Reading: ESA

The post This JWST Image Shows Gravitational Lensing at its Finest appeared first on Universe Today.

Perseverance Sees Drifting Clouds on Mars

NASA’s Perseverance rover mission provided a blueish pre-sunrise gift above Jezero Crater on March 18, 2022, aka Sol 738, or the 738^th Martian day of the mission, with “sol” being the official timekeeping method for Mars missions since one Martian day is approximately 40 minutes longer than one Earth day. The car-sized explorer used one of its navigation cameras (Navcam) to snap images of high-altitude clouds drifting in the Martian sky, which it shared on its officially Twitter page on March 23, 2023.

“This is the time of maximum cloud development in the equatorial and mid-latitudes of Mars, between the northern spring equinox and the summer solstice,” Dr. Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, a Professor of Applied Physics at the Bilbao School of Engineering (University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea UPV/EHU), recently told Universe Today. “Most of the Martian clouds are formed by ice crystals with sizes between 1 and 4 microns and usually form up to 40 km high. These morning clouds observed by Perseverance are of this nature. In addition, carbon dioxide clouds can also form, which are rarer and require very low temperature conditions. The formation and dissipation cycles of these clouds are important as tracers of the amount of water in the atmosphere and of the dynamical processes that take place in it.”

Scientists involved in Mars missions from both NASA and the European Space Agency have a long history of studying Martian cloud formations, even though the Red Planet is primarily known for its dust storms. Images of Martian clouds go as far back as NASA’s Viking Orbiter 1, when it imaged water ice clouds in the Valles Marineris region on August 17, 1976 during local Mars morning time. NASA’s Mars Pathfinder lander also snapped numerous images of Martian clouds throughout its mission in 1996, which lasted 83 sols, or 85 Earth days. Later Mars missions such as NASA’s Curiosity rover also imaged Martian clouds in 2021, as well.

Morning clouds on Mars imaged by NASA’s Viking Orbiter 1 on August 17, 1976. (Credit: NASA/JPL)

Composite image of Martian clouds taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover on March 19, 2021, or Sol 3063, just after sunset. This image is a combination of 21 single images and color correction was used to show how it would look to a human eye. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)

As noted, clouds on Mars are made of water ice, but they can also possess carbon dioxide (CO2) ice particles, as well. On Earth, water is heated by the Sun which then rises in the atmosphere and condenses to form clouds. Since water is almost non-existent in the Martian atmosphere, the Sun heats the dust-filled air, which then rises and forms clouds. What makes the clouds on both worlds look similar is the texture patterns that give them a sand-like appearance, which is caused by “closed-cell convection” and occurs on Venus, as well.

Dust also plays a role in Martian sunrises and sunsets. While a number of these images, specifically the most recent one from Perseverance, could be mistaken for Earth, what gives Mars away is the blue sunrise color, whereas on Earth sunrises and sunsets are both red. This blue color comes from atmospheric dust and dust particles that cause blue and green colors to scatter more in the Martian atmosphere, whereas red is the most scattered color within Earth’s atmosphere. Much like past images of Martian clouds, Mars missions also have a rich history of snapping beautiful Martian sunsets, as well.

Image of a Martian sunset taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover on April 15, 2015, or Sol 956. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M University)

Billions of years ago, when Mars had much more water, the clouds, sunrises, and sunsets quite possibly had a more Earth-like appearance. Unfortunately, as the interior of Mars cooled, the volcanism and protective magnetic field began to dissipate, which caused the water to evaporate to space. Today, Mars is a cold, dry, and dead world, but that doesn’t stop it from trying to share some resemblance to Earth, which makes the recent images taken by Perseverance all the more breathtaking.

How many more breathtaking images of Martian clouds, sunrises, and sunsets will we take, and what new discoveries will scientists make about Martian clouds in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Perseverance Sees Drifting Clouds on Mars appeared first on Universe Today.

Global Sea Levels Rose by 0.27 cm from 2021 to 2022

It probably comes as no surprise to people living in low-lying coastal regions, but sea waters are rising by large, measurable amounts. That assessment comes from NASA, which has analyzed 30 years of sea-level satellite measurements. The news is not good. Since 1993, the seas rose by a total of 9.1 centimeters. Two years ago, it went up by 0.27 centimeters.

That one-year rise from 2021 to 2022 may sound small by comparison, but it’s a harbinger. And, it adds up over time. Even taking into account slight shifts due to natural influences like La Niña (which periodically cools the oceans), sea heights continue to rise. Based on continued long-term satellite measurements, the projected rate of sea level rise will hit 0.66 centimeters per year by 2050.

To bring that idea home, last year NASA estimated that levels along the U.S. coastlines could rise as much as 30 centimeters above where they are today by 2050. It could get worse in other parts of the world.

We’re Causing This Sea Level Rise

The culprit for all this is human-caused climate change. It’s driven by the excess amounts of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide humans pump into the atmosphere. Climate change has a number of effects across the globe, but it’s particularly obvious in Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers. Just this past year alone, the Antarctic ice sheet has experienced above-average melting, even accounting for summer temperatures.

The stability of Greenland’s ice pack has changed a great deal, and today the Greenland Ice Sheet is a major contributor to sea level rise. That’s because its runoff and water from the Antarctic ice add more fresh water to the ocean while warming causes the expansion of seawater. The result is rising seas which override other natural effects on sea surface height.

This image of Earth shows sea level measured by the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite in 2021. Red areas are regions where sea level is higher than normal while blue indicates where it’s below normal. (Does not include the blue limb.) The satellite collects measurements for about 90% of Earth’s oceans.
Credits: NASA Earth Observatory

Tracking Sea Height from Space

The best and most accurate way to track ocean height rise is with space-borne instruments on satellites. The U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon mission began measuring sea surface height in 1993. Since then, sea-level observations continued through missions led by NASA, ESA, and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Scientific and technical innovations such as radar altimeters help produce ever-more precise measurements of sea levels around the world. To calculate the sea height, they bounce microwave signals off the ocean’s surface. Then, they record the time the signal takes to travel from a satellite to Earth and back, as well as the strength of the return signal.

“We have this clear view of recent sea level rise – and can better project how much and how quickly the oceans will continue to rise – because NASA and Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) have gathered decades of ocean observations. By combining that data with measurements from the rest of the NASA fleet, we can also understand why the ocean is rising,” said Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division in Washington.

An illustration of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite. Launched in November 2020, it is one of the latest in a series of spacecraft – starting with TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992 and continuing with the Jason series of satellites – that have been gathering ocean height measurements for nearly 30 years.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The 30-year satellite record not only shows long-term trends but allows scientists to see through naturally occurring shorter-term shifts. “That helps us identify the trends that tell us where sea level is headed,” said JPL’s Ben Hamlington, a researcher who leads NASA’s Sea Level Change science team. These measurements are coupled with nearly a century of land-based observations and long-term measurements of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Data from ice mass and land motion measurements give scientists a better idea of how and why seas are rising.

Ground-Level Effects of Sea-Level Rise

All these fundamental observations are important to understand the effects of climate change. But, they also help shape the types of services that federal and international agencies offer to coastal communities. These are the front-line places that have to prepare for rising waters.

As this rise continues, at least 800 million people will be facing at least a half-meter rise in water levels. In practical terms, that places such as Miami, New York, Bangkok, Shanghai, Lima (Peru), Cape Town, and many others, will suffer continual seawater incursions.

Coastal regions in the U.S. alone are home to more than half the country’s population. They contain major shipping ports, as well as recreational areas, and other facilities. The major physical impacts of sea level rise also threaten wildlife populations, delta regions, marshes and wetlands. These are just a few effects of climate change and how it is pushing sea levels up. That’s why fleets of satellites are not only tracking the rise of seawater, but the atmospheric concentrations of gases like carbon dioxide.

“Tracking the greenhouse gases that we add to the atmosphere tells us how hard we’re pushing the climate, but sea levels show us how much it’s responding,” said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “These measurements are a critical yardstick for how much humans are reshaping the climate.”

For More Information

NASA Uses 30-year Satellite Record to Track and Project Rising Seas
NASA Study: Rising Sea Level Could Exceed Estimates for U.S. Coasts
National Snow and Ice Data Center
C40: A Coalition of City Mayors Around the World

The post Global Sea Levels Rose by 0.27 cm from 2021 to 2022 appeared first on Universe Today.