There is no conclusive evidence that it is raining more over the ocean than it has in the past. Understanding how the global water cycle and precipitation patterns are changing under a warming climate is really important for both scientific and societal reasons.

While SWOT won't give us all the answers, the measurements it provides and its ability to measure almost all of the surface water on Earth (land and ocean) will support brand new insights and scientific discoveries.

The data from SWOT will be publicly available and scientists will be able to explore the SWOT "data sandbox", yielding new and unexpected discoveries. (BH)