Sea Surface Height Anomalies during El Niño/La Niña Event of 1997-1998 (WMS)

  • Released Friday, April 1, 2005
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The El Niño/La Niña event in 1997-1999 was particularly intense, but was also very well observed by satellites and buoys. Changes in the normal height of the ocean's surface were observed by the TOPEX/Poseidon altimeter.

This animation shows El Niño and La Niña from 1997 through 1998. Each frame is a ten-day average of sea surface height (SSH) anomalies—that is, of differences from normal SSH values. The area shown in the animation is the Pacific ocean from -20.5 to +20.5 latitude and +120.5 to +289.5 East longitude.

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Color bar showing sea surface height anomalies ranging from -30cm (-12in) below normal (blue areas) to +30 cm (12 in) above normal (red areas).

Color bar showing sea surface height anomalies ranging from -30cm (-12in) below normal (blue areas) to +30 cm (12 in) above normal (red areas).

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Friday, April 1, 2005.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:56 PM EDT.

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Datasets used in this visualization

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