Category: Ocean and climate news

Altimetry can enable to monitor continental water levels such as rivers but also as wetlands. Current flooding over Mexico can be seen with the hydrology-dedicated data.

The heavy rainfall over Central America (mainly in Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras) continues to cause many damages. The rainy season over these regions streches out from May to the end of November but already at this month, the current season is considered as the worst rainy season in the last 60 years. The Pistach products dedicated to coastal and hydrology studies enable to monitor the water level over wetlands, highlighting a level rise up to 2.5 m near the Mexican Minatitlàn city.

<link fileadmin images news mod_actus floods_mx_ja2_193_17.85_wetland.png download>

Altimetry-derived heights over Mexican wetlands on September 2010 (near the Minatitlàn city, around -94.69°W/17.85°N). Each curve represents the water level in meters (Y-axis) along the ground track (X-axis represents the latitude) at a given cycle so each curve is spacen from 10 days. The source data are Jason-2 data processed for hydrology applications. Credits CLS/Cnes.