Last 90 days of sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific [OC]



Last 90 days of sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific [OC]



Posted by Mathew_Barlow

3 comments
  1. viz tools: python and Blender
    data: NOAA coral reef watch data

    All the tools and data are freely available online.

    The animation shows the most recent 90 days of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific.

    The westward moving features are Tropical Instability Waves (TIWs) – horizontal waves in the ocean resulting from the interaction between the eastward and westward flowing equatorial currents. This interaction is a type of shear instability. An instability is where small disturbances can grow rapidly and fluids are often unstable where there are large differences in the speed of the flow (shear). This happens at all scales and can be observed when you stir a coffee, in the clouds moving past an island, in the jet stream, and around the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.

    Mathew Barlow
    Professor of Climate Science
    University of Massachusetts Lowell

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