Monitoring oceans by earth environment observation satellites to contribute to climate change countermeasures and marine resource conservation

Deep interaction between climate change and oceans

Oceans cover 70% of the Earth’s surface and are closely linked to global warming. Oceans absorb carbon dioxide and heat energy from the entire Earth, playing a role in mitigating global warming.
Meanwhile, it is said that ocean warming has a major impact on the Earth and ocean environment. When sea water temperatures and ocean currents change due to climate change, our lives will be greatly affected, such as major disasters and negative impact on the fishing industry and sea creatures. Therefore, it is important to properly grasp the state of oceans.

Efficiently grasping the state of a wide ocean with earth observation satellites!

JAXA’s satellites, GCOM-W, GCOM-C, ALOS-2 and their successors, observe sea surface temperature, sea wind speed, sea ice density, chlorophyll concentration, etc. in oceans and coastal areas. These satellite observation information are provided to relevant government and municipal agencies, etc. In addition, JAXA contributes to fishery projection/management (prevention of overfishing and illegal fishing) and polar navigation support through activities to improve the accuracy of short-term ocean projection by assimilating satellite data of sea surface temperature and others into the ocean model.

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  JAXA contributes to achieving sustainable oceans and marine resources by leveraging data from earth observation satellites as effective information to grasp the state of oceans and sea creatures.