Aquarius Sea Surface Temperature 2011 - 2015

  • Released Wednesday, September 23, 2015
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Aquarius is an international effort to measure sea surface salinity and learn about the interaction between ocean circulation, the water cycle and climate. Besides salinity, Aquarius also measures sea surface temperature because salinity and temperature determines seawater density and buoyancy. Sea-surface density drives formation of ocean water masses and three-dimensional ocean circulation. Thus better understanding of ocean salinity and temperature improves understanding of the ocean's capacity to store and transport heat. The animation shows the changes of sea surface temporature from September 7, 2011 to May 20, 2015.

Aquarius Sea Surface Temperature Flat Map 2011 - 2015

Aquarius Sea Surface Temperature 2011 --2015 in Mollweide Projection

Aquarius color bar showing sea surface temperature from -2 to 45 celsius, going from purple to green to dark red.

Aquarius color bar showing sea surface temperature from -2 to 45 celsius, going from purple to green to dark red.

Credits

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

This page was originally published on Wednesday, September 23, 2015.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 12:06 AM EST.

Datasets used in this visualization

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.