Measuring the height of the ocean gives scientists a real-time indication of how Earth’s climate is changing, said Josh Willis, the mission’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The oceans absorb about 90% of the excess heat from the planet’s warming climate. Seawater expands as it heats up, resulting in about a third of the modern-day global average sea level rise. Melting ice from land-based sources like glaciers and ice sheets accounts for the rest.

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