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This visualization celebrates over a year of successful Aquarius observations. Sea surface salinity is shown at various locations around the globe. Download this movie.
Aquarius Sea Surface Salinity Tour 2012
[20-Feb-2013] The Aquarius spacecraft was designed to measure global sea surface salinity. It is important to understand salinity, the amount of dissolved salts in water, because it gives us a better understanding of the water cycle, and can lead to improved climate models. Aquarius was a collaboration between NASA and the Space Agency of Argentina.This visualization celebrates over a year of successful Aquarius observations. Sea surface salinity is shown at various locations around the globe highlighting the following:
- The Atlantic Ocean is generally much more salty than the Pacific
- Low salinity waters in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific are transported westward
- High influxes of fresh water from the Amazon River basin can be clearly seen low salinity waters are transported by the Labrador current to the south
- High influxes of fresh water from the Ganges River basin can be seen keeping the Eastern Indian Ocean lower salinity than the Western Indian Ocean