Earth  ID: 4046

Aquarius Sea Surface Salinity on Rotating Globes 2012

Visualizations by Greg Shirah Released on February 27, 2013
The Aquarius spacecraft is designed to measure global sea surface salinity. It is important to understand salinity, the amount of dissolved salts in water, because it will lead us to better understanding of the water cycle and can lead to improved climate models. Aquarius is a collaboration between NASA and the Space Agency of Argentina

This visualization celebrates over a year of successful Aquarius observations. Sea surface salinity in the northern hemisphere is shown as the globe slowly rotates. The data cycles through a single year, 2012, and repeats. Two versions of the visualization are provied: a version with dates and a scientific color bar and another version without dates and a simpler color bar. The range of time shown is December 2011 through Decemeber 2012. The data continuously loops through this range every 6 seconds. This visualization was generated based on version 2.0 of the Aquarius data products with all 3 scanning beams.
http://The Aquarius spacecraft

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Aquarius spinning globe without dates and with public colorbar.
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Aquarius spinning globe with dates and with science colorbar
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Print resolution still of the Atlantic Ocean.
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Print resolution still showing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
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Print resolution still of the Eastern Pacific.
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Print resolution still of the Western Pacific Ocean.
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Print resolution still of oceans around Africa.
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Aquarius color bar intended for the public. The salinity range is low to high, going from blue to green to red.
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Aquarius color bar intended for scientists. The salinity range is 30 to 40 PSU, going from blue to green to red.
 

Related

A Decade of Sea Surface Salinity
Aquarius Sea Surface Salinity 2011-2014 - Rotating Globes
Aquarius Sea Surface Salinity 2011-2014 - Flat Maps
NASA's Aquarius Returns Global Maps of Soil Moisture
Salty Motion
Aquarius Sea Surface Salinity Flat Maps 2012
Aquarius Sea Surface Salinity Tour 2012

For More Information

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/aquarius/news/data-first-year.html

Visualization Credits

Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator
Horace Mitchell (NASA/GSFC): Animator
Kayvon Sharghi (USRA): Producer
Gary Lagerloef (ESR): Scientist
Gene Feldman (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Norman Kuring (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4046

Mission:
Aquarius

Data Used:
Aquarius/Microwave Radiometer/Sea Surface Salinity also referred to as: SSS
Observed Data - NASA - 12-2011 through 12-2012
view all stories where this data set is used
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.

This item is part of this series:
Aquarius

Keywords:
SVS >> HDTV
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Oceans >> Salinity/Density >> Salinity
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0