French/US Sea-level Tracking Satellite launched on the solstice.

[Dover]

Sea-level tracking satellite launched
Source: Copyright 2008, Agence France Presse
Date: June 20, 2008

A French-US satellite, which will provide the most accurate monitoring ever of rising sea levels and track the effects of climate change, was launched into orbit Friday from California.

A Delta 2 rocket carrying the Jason 2 satellite took off from Vandenberg Air Force base at 0746 GMT.

..snip..

Improved technology will allow Jason 2 to achieve a sea-level measurement accuracy of within 2.5 centimeters (one inch), compared with 3.3 centimeters (1.3 inches) for its predecessor Jason 1, NASA said.

Data from previous missions showed that sea levels have risen on average by 0.3 centimeters per year since 1993, or twice as much as they did in the whole of the 20th century, according to marine measurements.

But 15 years of data is not enough to draw accurate long-term conclusions, say scientists.

The latest mission will help create the first multi-decade global record of the role of the ocean in climate change, according to scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

It will also provide more accurate forecasts of seasonal weather patterns, and near real-time data on ocean conditions...cont'd

http://www.oceanconserve.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=101713

[ben_meyers]

1. Now this is fascinating, and quite the coincidence

I Just finished watching a program on Discovery Science about modern day Mammoth hunters. The opening sequence described how many mammoth bones and tusks were being dredged up from the floor of the English Channel! How would they have come to be there? It seems that until 8000 years ago Britain was part of the European continent. Most of the North Sea, the English Channel and even the River Thames didn't exist until "Global Climate Change" melted the polar ice caps and raised the sea levels.

http://forums.digiguide.com/topic.asp?id=20288

What does this have to do with the new Jason 2 satellite you ask? Well it seems to me that if those mammoths had access to this technology and its data that they could have reduced their carbon emissions and thus avoided the disastrous flooding that ensued.

We are fortunate that we now have scientists and non-scientists, with access to detailed data like that from the Jason 2 satellite that can predict with great accuracy what will happen if we don't heed their warnings. I'm sure there is still time to change the natural cycles of the planet and avoid the fate of the mammoths.