Movie of Pacific Surface Winds
This animation shows ocean surface wind speeds and directions over the Pacific as measured by the
NSCAT scatterometer on September 20, 1996. Here, wind speed is depicted by the color of the ocean
background: blue for low winds, red for moderate winds, and yellow for high winds. The movement
of the white arrows shows the direction of the wind at about 00:00 GMT. The underlying wind field
was constructed from eight orbits worth of NSCAT data by using a successive correction interpolation
scheme. Noteworthy features manifested in this scene include: typhoons Violet and Tom in the
North-Western Pacific near Japan, the trade winds and inter-tropical convergence zone near the
equator, and strong winter storm activity in the Southern Hemisphere.
