The Brown Ocean Effect
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- Visualizations by:
- Alex Kekesi
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- Scientific consulting by:
- Marshall Shepherd
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- Produced by:
- Matthew Radcliff
- View full credits
Before Tropical Storm Bill made landfall over Texas, eastern Texas experienced several days of rain that began flooding areas to the south east and northern parts of the state. As Tropical Storm Bill moved northward through Texas it is hypothesized that it fed off the highly saturated ground (as if it were still over the ocean) and can be seen slightly intensifying (via winds) as it moved into Oklahoma and progressed to the northeast.
In several regions of the world, tropical cyclones have been known to maintain or increase strength after landfall without transitioning to extratropical systems. It is hypothesized that these inland areas help sustain tropical cyclones when there has been plentiful rainfall, leading to unusually wet soil and strong latent heat release. Additionally, given the symmetric structure of warm-core cyclones, the atmosphere should tend toward barotropic conditions that mimic an ocean environment. Observational and modeling studies support this "brown ocean" concept, providing a global climatology of inland tropical cyclones, pinpointing regions that are more favorable for re-intensification, and analyzing individual cyclones to better understand the associated land-atmosphere feedbacks.
Atmosphere Atmospheric science Climate Indicators Earth Science floods Human Dimensions Hydrology Hydrosphere Hyperwall IMERG Land Surface Land Surface/agriculture Indicators Natural hazards precipitation rain Rainfall soil moisture Soil Moisture/Water Content Soil science Soils surface water Terrestrial Hydrosphere Tropical Storm
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
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Data visualizers
- Alex Kekesi (Global Science and Technology, Inc.) [Lead]
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)
- Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC)
- Trent L. Schindler (USRA)
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Researcher
- Theresa Andersen (University of Georgia)
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Scientist
- Marshall Shepherd (None) [Lead]
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Producer
- Matthew Radcliff (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]
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Technical support
- Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
- Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Datasets used in this visualization
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CPC (Climate Prediction Center) Cloud Composite
ID: 600Global cloud cover from multiple satellites
See all pages that use this dataset -
IMERG
ID: 863This dataset can be found at: http://pmm.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/document_files/IMERG_ATBD_V4.4.pdf
See all pages that use this dataset -
NASA-USDA-FAS Soil Moisture (Surface Soil Moisture corrected with SMOS imagery and assimilated by the Ensemble Kalman Filter)
ID: 954The surface soil moisture product is corrected by integrating satellite-derived Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission surface soil moisture retrievals into the modified Palmer two-layer soil moisture model. The SMOS imagery helps to correct the modified Pal
See all pages that use this dataset -
MERRA-2 Winds
ID: 959
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