ECCO2 Sea Surface Temperature and Flows

  • Released Wednesday, February 8, 2012
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Generated for Science On a Sphere show "Loop". This animation depicts the part of Earth's ocean circulation model that involves heat transfer.

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.

Animation showing only the Ocean Surface Flows.

Animation showing ECCO2 Sea Surface Temperatures. (NOTE: In order to avoid unwanted artifacts along coastlines, data has been smeared inland.)

Background image of Earth used to composite the final shot.

Background image of Earth used to composite the final shot.

Land mask.

Land mask.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Wednesday, February 8, 2012.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:53 PM EDT.

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