ECCO2 Sea Surface Temperature and Flows
- Visualizations by:
- Alex Kekesi
- View full credits
In the polar latitudes the ocean loses heat to the atmosphere. Near the equator ocean water warms, and because it is less dense, it remains close to the surface. Cast away from the planet's equator by the winds and Earth's rotation, warm equatorial waters travel on or near the surface of the globe outward toward high latitudes. But as water loses heat to the increasingly cold atmosphere far away from the equator it sinks and pushes other water out of the way. Endlessly, this pump known as Meridional Overturning Circulation, circulates water and heat around the globe. Considering that the ocean stores exponentially more heat than the atmosphere and the fact that they're always in direct contact with each other, there's a strong relationship between oceanic heat and atmospheric circulation.
Example composite animation of ECCO2 Ocean Surface Flows over ECCO2 Sea Surface Temperatures.
This video is also available on our YouTube channel.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
Animators
- Alex Kekesi (GST) [Lead]
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)
- Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
Writer
- Michael Starobin (KBRwyle)
Video editor
- Victoria Weeks (None)
Producer
- Michael Starobin (KBRwyle)
Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
ECCO2 (A.K.A. ECCO2 High Resolution Ocean and Sea Ice Model)
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.