NASA picks 2 Scripps women scientists as finalists for climate change mission

Every day, researchers and scientists around the world work to understand the impacts climate will have on our planet, observing from every perspective, including space.

Now, a leader in space technology has selected not just one, but two local female scientists to put their satellite missions into concept studies with the goal they'll track the impacts of climate change.

Among the finalists are physical oceanographer, Sarah Gille and glaciologist Helen Fricker, both from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

"We were absolutely thrilled," Gille told NBC 7 on the news of her mission being selected.

"It was great," Fricker said. "It was wonderful news."

It's news that both scientists worked hard to receive.

"I got the phone call at 8:21 a.m. and I knew It was a U.S. government line 202 number and I’m like 'Okay here it is,'" Fricker said.

It was a call from NASA. Gille received one, too, telling both scientists their satellite proposals in the coveted Earth System Explorers Program were chosen.

"You can think of the first bit is the science has basically passed a rigorous review by a big panel and it’s deemed compelling enough that it’s worth launching a mission for," Fricker said.

Helen Fricker's 'Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer' mission

Fricker's mission is called EDGE. It stands for Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer.

"It’s basically a giant laser pointer in space, but it’s not just one laser pointer, there’s forty of them in space," Fricker said. "These 40 laser pointers are distributed through strips that are 400 feet wide and there’s five of them. They basically map the earth in these five ribbons, giving us the height of the earth and the shape and structure of the canopy and the vegetation canopy as well.”

But that's not the only data this satellite will measure.

"Then the other one is ice, so the ice sheets, the glaciers, and the ice sheets are losing mass fairly slowly but they’re losing it significantly to the ocean so it’s causing sea-level to rise," Fricker said.

Mapping the edges of the ice sheets, Fricker says that's how they'll be able to see where ice sheets and glaciers are changing. The information would go to agencies like USGS and the NIADC.

"Greenland is a big deal because we’re losing a lot of mass to the ocean, west Antarctic we’re also losing a lot of ice and then the glaciers as well," Fricker said.

Fricker says right now, there isn't a lot of data with the current instruments that map over these regions. It's because the orbits are laid down differently.

Sarah Gille's 'Odysea' mission

Meantime, Gille's mission, called Odysea tracks the interaction of currents and winds using a Doppler scatterometer. She says while there's an aircraft version of the instrument, this would be the first time it would be on a satellite.

"So what the satellite does is to send a signal to the ocean surface and measure the reflected energy and the radar is oriented relative to the direction of the winds," Gille said.

Simply put, winds drive our weather, and with more information on how they interact with ocean currents, Gille says this satellite could provide more reliable forecasts and information on the arrival of storms. It could even be used during search and rescue operations when people, ships, and objects are lost at sea.

”Odysea will provide satellite winds at a time of day when we get no satellite wind products, so it will fill a complete gap in the cycle of the time of day, it’ll give us a better view of the evolution of storms and it will also give us the currents at the same time," Gille said.

The radar signal changes based on the motion of the ocean currents, and the satellite will measure that change, otherwise known as a Doppler shift.

"Odysea will provide currents globally every day over the entire planet so it will give us a regular map over ocean currents," Gille said.

With the next 10 months ahead of them and their teams, both Fricker and Gille will work to carry out their concept studies of their respective studies before submitting them to NASA.

"The pressure's on," Gille said.

"The ultimate goal is to get selected," Fricker said.

That selection would come from NASA. The space leader will pick two of the four proposals submitted to launch in 2030 and 2032. The missions that are chosen will have a budget of $310 million.

 Any combination of the four missions submitted could be chosen.

Fricker will be working on a team of 25 scientists and engineers from around the world, including from the University of Maryland and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Gille's team includes 20 members with partnerships from the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) and the French Space Agency (CNES).