2005 Hurricanes: Clouds and Sea Surface Temperature

  • Released Wednesday, April 12, 2006
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This visualization shows sea surface temperatures during most of the 2005 hurricane season. Overlaid are infrared cloud data, storm track data, and storm name labels. Warm ocean waters provide the heat energy that fuels hurricanes. Notice the correspondence between the storm tracks and the sea surface temperature response; this is particulary noticeable for hurricanes Dennis, Emily, and Katrina, where the hurricanes churn up the ocean so that cooler water rises to the surface. This version shows the entire Atlantic hurricane region and depicts all of the 2005 hurricanes except Zeta, which appeared at the very end of the year.

The 2005 hurricane season showing sea surface temperatures, clouds, and named storm tracks. Cloud data comes from GOES-12 and sea surface temperature comes from AMSR-E.

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The legend for sea surface temperature. The color scale ranges from dark blue for areas below 15C to dark red for regions above 35C.

The legend for sea surface temperature. The color scale ranges from dark blue for areas below 15C to dark red for regions above 35C.

Credits

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

This page was originally published on Wednesday, April 12, 2006.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:55 PM EDT.

Datasets used in this visualization

  • [GOES-12: Imager]

    ID: 172
    Sensor: Imager Dates used: 2005/06/01 - 2005/12/12
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  • Sea Surface Temperature [Aqua: AMSR-E]

    ID: 238
    Sensor: AMSR-E Dates used: 2005/06/01 - 2005/12/12
    See all pages that use this dataset

  • Hurricane/Tropical Data

    ID: 282
    Type: Database Dates used: 2005/06/01 - 2005/12/12
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  • Sea Surface Height Anomaly [TOPEX: Poseidon]

    ID: 514
    Sensor: Poseidon Dates used: 2005/06/01 - 2005/12/12
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  • Infrared Global Geostationary Composite

    ID: 579
    Type: Data Compilation Dates used: 2005/06/01 - 2005/12/12

    Satellite Data Used to Produce WORLD-IR14KM Mosaic: GOES-11 - Southern hemisphere Band 4 10.7 um IR, Northern hemisphere Band 4 10.7 um IR; GOES-12 - Southern hemisphere Band 4 10.7 um IR, Northern hemisphere Band 4 10.7 um IR; Meteosat-7 - Band 8 11.5 um IR; Meteosat-9 - Band 9 10.8 um IR; MTSAT-1R - Band 2 10.8 um IR; NOAA-15 - Band 4 11 micron IR; NOAA-16 - Band 4 11 micron IR; NOAA-17 - Band 4 11 micron IR

    This dataset can be found at: http://ghrc.msfc.nasa.gov/uso/ds_catalog/globalir.html

    See all pages that use this dataset

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.