Since 1993, satellites have been measuring the height of the ocean surface to millimeter precision, tracking one of the clearest fingerprints of a warming planet: global sea level rise.

This animation shows the linear trend in sea level from satellite altimetry (1993-2025), in mm/year. Land is shown in flat gray, sea level anomaly only exists over the ocean. As before, the bulging and sinking is a visual amplification of the color, not a physical deformation, sea level doesn't literally bulge outward like this.

Since 1993, satellite altimetry has measured the height of the ocean surface with millimeter precision. This animation shows the monthly sea level anomaly (Copernicus/CMEMS, vDT2024) from 1993 to 2025, projected onto the Spilhaus projection, which shows the world ocean as a single connected body of water instead of cutting it into pieces at the map edges.