Earth ID: 205

SeaWIFS Phytoplankton around the Galapagos Islands in May 1998

Visualizations by Greg Shirah Released on June 11, 1998

SeaWiFS documented the rapid demise of El Niño in the waters around the Galapagos Islands. The images show a explosion in plankton growth as the warm El Niño waters blamed for choking off essential ocean nutrients are replaced by deep cold upwelled waters. The false color images, which document plankton concentrations a period from May 9, 1998 to May 31, 1998, show that life in the region to the west archipelago has returned in remarkable abundance. High concentrations are shown red and low concentrations in blue. Areas occluded by clouds are shown in white. A relief image of the Galapagos islands has been superimposed on the images to clarify the location of the islands.

Phytoplankton concentrations around the Galapagos Islands for May 29, 1998 from SeaWIFS. This image was not used in the animation.

Phytoplankton concentrations around the Galapagos Islands for May 31, 1998 from SeaWIFS. This image was not used in the animation.

For More Information

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/stories/elnino/index.html

Visualization Credits

Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator
Marte Newcombe (GST): Animator
Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Gene Feldman (NASA/GSFC): Scientist

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, The SeaWiFS Project and GeoEye, Scientific Visualization Studio. NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye (NOTE: In January 2013, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye combined to become DigitalGlobe).

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Data Used:

SeaStar/SeaWiFS

1998/05/09, 1998/05/18, 1998/05/22, 1998/05/24, 1998/05/29, 1998/05/31

NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye

Credit:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, The SeaWiFS Project and GeoEye, Scientific Visualization Studio. NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye (NOTE: In January 2013, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye combined to become one DigitalGlobe.).

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Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of this series:
El Niño and La Niña

Keywords:
DLESE >> Biological oceanography
SVS >> Phytoplankton
GCMD >> Location >> Galapagos Islands
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0