A piece of Canadian radar technology will play a key role in a satellite mission scheduled to launch Friday that aims to study nearly every surface of water on Earth and provide data that will be a boon to Canadian researchers .
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission is led by NASA and the French space agency – Center national d’etudes spatiale – with contributions from the Canadian and UK space agencies.
A Canadian component of NASA’s radar will generate microwave pulses used to gather precise water measurements and surface information. The set of high-power extended interaction klystrons, known as EIKs, were built by Ontario-based Communications & Power Industries Canada.
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Once in orbit, the satellite will survey 90% of Earth’s water surfaces and collect data to help researchers inform policies to improve water management and adapt to climate change. By measuring the height of freshwater and ocean bodies, the satellite will gather data on how warming affects water and how communities can prepare for floods and drought.
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Guoqi Han, a senior researcher at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said the new satellite will allow researchers to measure both large and small currents. Existing satellites, he said, don’t really study small currents, which are important in climate change research and are responsible for more than 50 percent of the heat and carbon transfers between the atmosphere and the Earth’s interior. ocean
“SWOT will revolutionize our observation of ocean surface currents from space; it will be a game changer,” Han said at a briefing at the Canadian Space Agency.
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Melanie Trudel, an associate professor in the department of civil and building engineering at the University of Sherbrooke, says SWOT will provide important information about the heights of inland waterways. “SWOT will allow for a level of precision that we don’t have right now,” Trudel said.
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One of the functions of SWOT will be to measure how lakes, rivers, reservoirs and oceans are changing. Canada is home to 62% of the world’s lakes.
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Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Vincent Fortin said access to SWOT data will mean more accurate models for making infrastructure more resilient to climate change.
“These will allow us to refine our models that we use to make climate projections on a global scale, but also on a regional scale like in Canada, where we have so many lakes,” Fortin said.
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“It can be hoped that by improving our models, we can have better products such as flood maps that are up-to-date and current and projections that will be valid for decades to come.”
The data will help Fisheries and Ocean Canada significantly improve its ocean monitoring program, with a better understanding of coastal dynamics, as well as ocean and weather forecasting.
It can also help with marine safety and fisheries management.
For example, the data can help researchers protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale, Han said. By studying ocean currents in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which affect the distribution of zooplankton, the whales’ food, researchers can better understand the animals’ habitat and can advise policymakers on ways to protect the animals from collisions with fishing vessels.
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The satellite is scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Friday morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on December 15, 2022.
© 2022 The Canadian Press