Cold Water Trails from Hurricanes Fabian and Isabel (WMS)
This visualization shows the cold water trails left first by Hurricanes Fabian and then by Hurricane Isabel in the Atlantic Ocean from August 27, 2003 through September 23, 2003. The colors on the ocean represent the sea surface temperatures, and satellite images of the hurricane clouds are laid over the temperatures to clearly show the hurricane positions. Orange and red depict regions that are 82 degrees F and higher, where the ocean is warm enough for hurricanes to form. Hurricane winds are sustained by the heat energy of the ocean, so the ocean is cooled as the hurricane passes and the energy is extracted to power the winds. A hurricane can experience a dramatic reduction in wind speed when it crosses the cold track of a previous hurricane. However, in this case, the cold water track from Fabian warmed up before Isabel crossed it, so Isabel's winds did not decrease. The sea surface temperatures were measured by the AMSR-E instrument on the Aqua satellite, while the cloud images were taken by the Imager on the GOES-12 satellite.
Hurricanes Fabian and Isabel leave cold water trails in their wake.
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Color bar for sea surface temperature, in degrees Celsius.
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Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Scientific Visualization Studio
The Blue Marble Next Generation data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC) and NASA's Earth Observatory.
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Animators
- Eric Sokolowsky (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)
- Alex Kekesi (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Jesse Allen (Raytheon)
- Marte Newcombe (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Stuart A. Snodgrass (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Kevin Mahoney (CSC)
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Scientist
- J. Marshall Shepherd (NASA/GSFC)
Release date
This page was originally published on Wednesday, February 11, 2004.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:56 PM EDT.
Missions
This page is related to the following missions:Series
This page can be found in the following series:Datasets used
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[Aqua: AMSR-E]
ID: 4For more information, please click http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/AMSR/
See all pages that use this dataset -
[GOES: IR4]
ID: 33 -
[Terra: MODIS]
ID: 116 -
BMNG (Blue Marble: Next Generation) [Terra and Aqua: MODIS]
ID: 508Credit: The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).
This dataset can be found at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/
See all pages that use this dataset
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.