June 20, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 15, 1429

WASHINGTON: The French-US satellite Jason 2, slated for lift-off on Friday from California, will provide precise monitoring of rising sea levels and currents and track the effects of climate change.

Weather permitting, the high-tech oceanography space lab will be launched aboard a Delta 2 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base from 1946 GMT, when a nine-minute window of opportunity for the launch opens.

Fifty-five minutes after take-off, it will reach its orbit some 1,335 kilometres above the Earth.

“We are set to fly,” NASA launch manager Omar Baez said on the Spaceflight Now website.

Jason 2 is programmed to manoeuvre into the same orbit as its predecessor Jason 1, which was launched in 2001, and eventually replace the older craft.

Rising sea levels is one of the most serious consequences of global warming, threatening dozens of island nations and massively populated delta regions, especially in Asia and Africa.

Data from previous missions showed that sea levels have risen on average by 0.3 centimetres per year since 1993, or twice as much as they did in the whole of the 20th century, according to marine measurements.

But 15 years of data is not enough to draw accurate long-term conclusions, say scientists.—AFP