Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Plot from 1950 to 2015

  • Released Monday, December 14, 2015
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Plot of time (1950 to 2015) versus sea surface temperature anomalies (-2.5 to +2.5 degrees C)

Sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) from NOAA are used to determine when El Nino and La Nina conditions have occurred. This visualization shows a plot over time of SSTAs over a region of the Pacific Ocean called "Oceanic Nino Index Region 3.4". An El Nino happens when the SSTA is greater than 0.5 degrees C (shown in red); a La Nina happens when SSTA is less than -0.5 degrees C (shown in blue).

Over this period, several El Nino events occurred including: 1957-1958, 1972-1973, 1982-1983, and 1997-1998.

This visualization is based on the following NOAA data:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml

Credits

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

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.

This page was originally published on Monday, December 14, 2015.
This page was last updated on Sunday, February 2, 2025 at 10:24 PM EST.