{"id":260455,"date":"2025-08-02T01:43:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T15:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/?p=895458"},"modified":"2025-08-02T01:43:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T15:43:31","slug":"how-joint-nasa-esa-sea-level-mission-will-help-hurricane-forecasts-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=260455","title":{"rendered":"How Joint NASA-ESA Sea Level Mission Will Help Hurricane Forecasts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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6 min read<\/p>\n

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Sea surface height can tell meteorologists a lot about extreme storms like hurricanes, including whether they will intensify within a day. This kind of information can help communities better prepare if a hurricane is headed their way. Hurricane Elena is seen here from the space shuttle Discovery in 1985.<\/div>\n
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Sentinel-6B will measure sea surface height for nearly all of the world\u2019s ocean, providing important data for information products, including weather and hurricane forecasts.<\/em><\/p>\n

NASA has a long record of monitoring Earth\u2019s sea surface height, information critical not only for tracking how the ocean changes over time but also for hurricane forecasting. These extreme storms can cost the United States billions of dollars each year, wreaking havoc on lives and property. Meteorologists have worked to improve forecasts for a hurricane\u2019s path, or track, as well as its intensity, measured as surface wind speed. Sentinel-6B, the U.S.-European satellite launching later this year, will help in that effort.<\/p>\n

The satellite is the second of two spacecraft that constitute the Sentinel-6\/Jason-CS (Continuity of Service) mission, a collaboration between NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), EUMETSAT (the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). With its launch planned for no earlier than Nov. 16, 2025, Sentinel-6B will take over from its twin, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich<\/a>, which launched in November 2020 as part of a long line of U.S.-European missions that have monitored sea levels since 1992.<\/p>\n

\u201cSentinel-6 will track global changes in Earth\u2019s ocean \u2014 height, heat, and movement \u2014 and will improve forecasts of local extremes like floods and hurricanes, linking planetary trends to real-world risks for communities,\u201d said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, Sentinel-6 program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.<\/p>\n

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