Question: Which of the following mission under NASA’s satellites recently revealed the major changes in global freshwater?
(a) Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment
(b) Gravity Recovery and Atmospheric Study
(c) Gravity Recovery and Changes in Freshwater
(d) None of these
Answer: (a)
Related Facts:
- The journal ‘Nature’ published on May 16th, 2018, revealed major changes in freshwater reserves upon the Earth.
- This study shows a time series data collected by NASA satellites under NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission.
- During 14-year ( 2002 to 2016) study span of the collected data, less than the average (red color) and more (blue color) has been used to refer to the status of fresh water in the map.
- Red on the global map refers to less storage of freshwater while blue color refers high storage.
- It is important that in a first-of-its-kind study, scientists have combined an array of NASA satellite observations of Earth with data on human activities to map locations where freshwater is changing around the globe and to determine why.
- The study tracked the global trends of freshwater in 34 areas around the world.
- It is important that NASA launched the twin ‘GRACE’ satellites as a joint mission with the German Aerospace Center in the year 2002.
Reference:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-satellites-reveal-major-shifts-in-global-freshwater
https://www.jagranjosh.com/current-affairs/nasa-satellites-reveal-major-shifts-in-global-freshwater-1526646260-1