El Niņo: ATSR monthly average Sea Surface Temperature over the
world
Keywords: ATSR, ESA/ESRIN, SST, El Niņo.
| July 1997 |
degree C. |
 |
 |
| July 1995 |
degree C. |
 |
|
| SST difference between July 1995 and July 1997 |
degree C. |
 |
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El Niņo Effect
ATSR monthly average Sea Surface Temperature at the spatial resolution of 30
arcminutesThe Pacific ocean is usually warmer and higher on the Western
side than along the South American coast, due to the Trade Winds blowing
constantly from East to West. These winds transport the warm surface water
from East to West, where it is piled up. In the East, the warm surface water is
replaced by cold, nutricious water coming from deeper layers: this vertical
movement is called upwelling.
During an El Niņo event the Trade Winds
relax, become very weak, and may even reverse. This causes the warm surface
water to flow back eastwards, and stops the upwelling on the eastern side. This
means that along the South American coast the sea surface temperature will rise,
and it will drop on the Asian and Indonesian coasts.
El Niņo is very strong this year. The image difference between July 1995 and
July 1997 highlights the El Niņo phenomena. In July 95 the water along the South
American Coast is much colder than the July 97 water (in blue in the image).
Some studies show the interconnection between El Niņo and anormal
climatic events all over the world.
The 1997 El Niņo event may be
responsible for drought and associated fires in Indonesia and for the Pauline
cyclone in Mexico.
Image descriptionThe monthly composite images have been made using
the ATSR spatially averaged Sea Surface Temperature product. One single product
consists of about one ATSR orbit. About 340 orbits were used to produced a
monthly composite. The spatial resolution is 30 arcminutes, the temperature
precision is better than 0.3 Celsius. The data have been processed at RAL
July 1997 image is derived from
ATSR-2 data, July 1995 is
derived from ATSR-1 data. The
difference image is just SST (July 1995) minus SST(July 1997). The
temperature scale is given in degree Celsius.
Animation SST ATSR-1 from August 1991 to July 1995Monthly SST
animation from August 1991 to July 1995 ATSR-1 (5.2 Mbyte). Data
Processed at RAL.
Click here to view the image
(5.2 Mbyte)
Others Sites Related to El Niņo
Study presented at ERS Symposium (Florence, 1997):
Use of ATSR data and in situ observations to study ocean
Keywords: ESA European
Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne,
observation de la terre, earth observation,
satellite remote sensing,
teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar,
chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar,
atmospheric chemistry
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