Scientists with NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland mission are probing deep below the island’s warming coastal waters to help us better predict the rising seas of the future.

As glaciers flow outward from the Greenland Ice Sheet, what lies beneath them offers clues to their role in future ice thinning and sea-level rise contribution.

New NASA research is helping the City of San Francisco plan measures to adapt to sea level rise. (Image credit: Dave R/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0))

At this year's American Geophysical Union (AGU), researchers are highlighting how an ice-measuring mission is helping to understand aspects of our home planet far beyond what it was intended to do.

Launched on a Falcon 9 rocket Nov. 21, the U.S.-European satellite will measure the world's ocean with unprecedented accuracy.

High-tide flooding is an increasing fact of life for U.S. coastal areas. A new tool developed with NASA funding projects its annual frequency for 97 U.S. cities and how it will change over time. (Image credit: B137, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)