These animations show variations of three-day running mean sea surface temperature (SST) and daily mean sea ice concentration (SIC) over the Antarctic region observed by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) from July 1 to December 31, 2002. You can see that the seawater circulates clockwise around Antarctica due to the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (left animation). You can also see that the sea ice cover expands during winter in July and August and contracts after September (right animation).
AMSR-E, which is the sister sensor of
AMSR aboard "Midori II" (ADEOS-II) and developed by NASDA, was launched on NASA's EOS Aqua satellite in May 2002. Note that the word "NO DATA" displayed in images indicates there was no observation by
AMSR-E on that day.
Mar. 18, 2003
