Tides Sensing Earth

Welcome to the ESA supported project "Magnetic Tidal Signals and Their Use in Mapping the Electrical Conductivity of the Lithosphere and Upper Mantle". This project is part of the Support to Science Element (STSE) Swarm+Innovations.

For decades, studies of lithospheric/mantle electrical conductivity were based on interpreting data from a global network of magnetic observatories or magnetotelluric surveys. However, the recent expansion in magnetic data from low-Earth orbiting satellite missions (Ørsted, CHAMP, SAC-C, and Swarm) has led to a rising interest in probing Earth electrical structure from space. Satellites provide a variety of benefits, the largest of which is much improved spatial coverage. Additionally, and in contrast to ground-based data, satellites provide uniform and very high quality data.

A few studies convincingly demonstrated that the magnetic fields induced by the lunar semidiurnal (M2) ocean tide could be identified in satellite observations. This result prompts using M2 satellite magnetic data to constrain subsurface electrical conductivity in oceanic regions. We aim to use the magnetic fields produced from ocean tides to probe the conductivity of Earth's lithosphere and upper mantle. 

The kick-off of the study was on 4 April 2015 and the final meeting is foreseen for autumn 2016.