Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Planetary Photo Journal Collection
Title:
TOPEX El Niño/La Niña -La Niña Begins to Fade, April 7, 1999
Original Caption Released with Image:
The cold pool of water in the Pacific known as "La Niña" is beginning to fade, but ocean conditions have not returned to normal, according to scientists studying new images from the U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon satellite.

New imagery of sea-surface heights taken this month by the ocean-observing satellite show cooler temperatures and lower sea levels across the equatorial Pacific Ocean (seen in blue and purple in the center of the image) are diminishing, which indicates that the equatorial Pacific is slowly returning to normal.

However, in the north and south Pacific Ocean, temperatures and sea level remain high (seen in red and white), a pattern that began many months ago. In a nutshell, this means that although La Niña is fading, heat distribution in the Pacific Ocean remains dramatically out of balance.

The TOPEX/Poseidon mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA s Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

For more information, please visit the TOPEX/Poseidon project web page at http://topex-www.jp…
Addition Date:
1999-06-21
Produced By:
JPL
Mission:
TOPEX/Poseidon (Jason-1)
Spacecraft:
TOPEX/Poseidon
Target Name:
Earth
Is a satellite of:
Sol (our sun)
Instrument:
Altimeter
Product Size:
901 samples x 900 lines
Primary Data Set:
TOPEX/Poseidon Science and Data
Producer ID:
P50322
facet_what:
Sun
facet_what:
Earth
facet_what:
TOPEX
facet_what:
Jason-1
facet_what:
Poseidon
facet_what:
TOPEX/Poseidon
facet_what:
Altimeter
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
facet_where:
Pacific Ocean
facet_where:
California
facet_where:
Washington
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
facet_when:
April 7, 1999
facet_when_year:
1999
Image #:
PIA00031
UID:
SPD-PHOTJ-PIA00031
orignial url:

TOPEX El Niño/La Niña -La Niña Begins to Fade, April 7, 1999