NASA and its European partners are leveraging data from the Copernicus Sentinel-6/Jason-CS mission to enhance hurricane predictions and monitor the ongoing El Niño phenomenon. The mission currently consists of two satellites, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich and the recently launched Sentinel-6B, which orbits 30 seconds behind its predecessor.
The satellites utilize radar altimeters to measure sea level height, wave size, and marine wind speeds. Because warmer water expands, these height measurements provide critical insights into ocean heat content, a key factor in how rapidly hurricanes intensify. Additionally, the satellites carry instruments to measure atmospheric humidity, pressure, and temperature.
Oceanographers expect the current El Niño to be a major event, comparable to those recorded in 1997 and 2015. This phenomenon shifts global weather patterns by weakening equatorial winds, which causes heat to spread eastward and alters the distribution of hurricane activity between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Josh Willis, a project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, noted that the event was a "late-bloomer" but is now exerting significant influence on global weather.
The data collected by the Sentinel-6 mission is integrated into forecasting algorithms, such as NOAA’s Satellite Ocean Heat Content Suite. These models are vital for emergency management, as they help officials make informed decisions regarding evacuations and the deployment of resources. Deirdre Byrne, an oceanographer at NOAA, emphasized that the primary goal is to better predict the rapid intensification of storms, which can occur within 48 hours of landfall.
The Sentinel-6 mission continues a legacy of ocean observation that began with the TOPEX/Poseidon mission in 1992. The program is a collaborative effort involving NASA, the European Space Agency, EUMETSAT, and NOAA, with support from the European Commission and the French space agency CNES. Sentinel-6B is expected to become the primary reference satellite for global sea level measurements later this year.
Source: NASA
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