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Simulation of idealized, wind-driven ocean basin
A numerical simulation of an idealized, wind-driven ocean basin calculated on massively parallel computers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Pictured is the vorticity at the surface of the ocean with red indicating clockwise rotation and blue indicating counter-clockwise rotation. Many small coherent eddies are visible. These eddies can rotate in either direction and can endure for a year or more. The sharp boundary between the broad red and blue regions is a fast-moving, meandering jet, analogous to the North Atlantic Gulf Stream.
Such computations capture the complex spatio-temporal variability seen in the Earth's oceans, allowing a better understanding of the Earth's climate system.
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation (grant OCE 98-18839). (Year of image: 2001)
Credit: Jeffrey B. Weiss, University of Colorado Boulder
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