Aquarius Sea Surface Density

  • Released Wednesday, September 23, 2015
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Sea surrface density is derived from Aquarius science products and generated by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Aquarius Data Processing System. It is very important because sea surface density drives formation of ocean water masses and three-dimensional ocean circulation. As water parcels sink and move through the ocean, their densities will be modified by mixing with other parcels of seawater. However, if the density signatures of all the end member water masses are known, this mixing can be "unraveled" to determine the proportions of their various source waters. This animation shows the changes of sea surface density from September 7, 2011 to May 20, 2015.

Aquarius Sea Surface Density 2011 - 2015 Flat Map

Aquarius Sea Surface 2011 - 2015 Mollweide Projection

Aquarius color bar showing the density from 1020 to 1030 (kg/m3), going from purple to green to red.

Aquarius color bar showing the density from 1020 to 1030 (kg/m3), going from purple to green to red.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Wednesday, September 23, 2015.
This page was last updated on Sunday, February 2, 2025 at 10:22 PM EST.

Datasets used

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