New Map Of Ocean Floor From NASA’s SWOT Reveals Most Detailed View Yet

NASA’s SWOT satellite has canvassed the Earth’s ocean floor in more detail than ever. From orbit, the satellite has been surveying our seas to provide a deeper understanding of the life and formations within. While this isn’t SWOTs primary objective, the data secured has painted a greater picture than ever before. 

Earth’s oceans have remained notoriously unknown with NOAA saying explorers have only ventured across a meagre 5% of the sea. Equally, only around 26.1% has been mapped. As a result, NASA says the need for satellite imagery and capabilities to uncover the secrets of the ocean is more crucial than ever. 

NASA’s head of physical oceanography programs, Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, commented: “Seafloor mapping is key in both established and emerging economic opportunities, including rare-mineral seabed mining, optimizing shipping routes, hazard detection, and seabed warfare operations.”

Why NASA Deployed SWOT To Map The Ocean

In conjunction with France’s CNES, a NASA team released the first map of the sea’s landscape created from SWOT data. What was unveiled is said to be “one of the most detailed maps yet of the ocean floor.” Over many decades, ships equipped with sonar began the ocean mapping feat, however, the limitations resulted in a minimal 25% of being surveyed. 

To counteract these limitations and “to produce a global picture of the seafloor, researchers have relied on satellite data,” NASA said. Adding: “There are better maps of the Moon’s surface than of the bottom of Earth’s ocean. Researchers have been working for decades to change that.” Now, researchers can obtain a greater understanding of the way heat and life navigate the ocean. 

Mapping The Ocean: How SWOT Works

From space, researchers used data to understand the ebbs and flows of the ocean floor. NASA said “geological features like seamounts and abyssal hills” have a faintly stronger gravitational pull. The scientist identified this due to the increased mass compared to what they’re surrounded by, creating “bumps in the sea surface,” NASA added. With this data, scientists were able to estimate the features of the ocean floor via these gravitational signatures. 

Over a year, in 21 day shifts, SWOT covered approximately 90% of the globe, observing alterations in the sea surface. NASA said: “the satellite is sensitive enough to pick up these minute differences, with centimeter-level accuracy.” The scientists utilised the data captured to understand the landscape of seamounts, abyssal hills and continental margins. 

Interestingly, previous observations identified 44,000 seamounts, but with SWOT, NASA has inflated that number to 100,000. These areas are attractive to organisms and are teeming with life, surrounded by oases due to the “concentrate [of] nutrients along their slopes,” NASA commented.     

The Need For Maps Of The Ocean

Maps of the ocean are crucial to everyday ocean-bound activities. However, these maps have been scarce. NASA says that navigation and our ability to install underwater cabling – such as NBN – rely on ocean floor mapping. 

Equally, the seafloor influences currents and tides, where maps enable an understanding of how they operate. “The SWOT satellite was a huge jump in our ability to map the seafloor,” Scripps Institution of Oceanography geophysicist, David Sandwell said.

Also, the seamounts and abyssal hills previously mentioned are inviting to life due to the heat and nutrients. NASA said: “the effects of these physical features can even be felt at the surface by the influence they exert on ecosystems that human communities depend on.”

Understanding The History Of The Ocean & Next Steps

SWOT’s data may have revealed more than just a map. In fact, NASA said SWOT has provided a more definitive picture of the planet’s geological history. The aforementioned “abyssal hills are the most abundant landform on Earth, covering about 70% of the ocean floor. These hills are only a few kilometres wide, which makes them hard to observe from space. We were surprised that SWOT could see them so well.” oceanographer Yao Yu said. 

These hills are crafted by the movement of tectonic plates. By studying abyssal hills, they offer a window into how Earth’s underlying plates shift over time and how they manipulate tides and currents – something scientists are yet to entirely understand. 

Researchers have officially completed nearly all of the data extraction for this SWOT mission. Here on, NASA said scientists will attempt to calculate how deep these captured sea features are. Ambitions are set on scientists mapping the entirety of the ocean floor by 2030 with the aid of sonars attached to ships. Sandwell concluded: “We won’t get the full ship-based mapping done by then. But SWOT will help us fill it in, getting us close to achieving the 2030 objective.”