This video shows us 4-years of Earth’s sea surface temperatures in 45-seconds and the result is stunning.

Modeling Our Future Oceans

by NASA

June 8, 2016 is World Oceans Day, a global day of ocean celebration and collaboration. On June 8 each year, we celebrate the ocean, its importance in our lives, and how we can protect it. In order to measure and understand the planet’s oceans, NOAA is constantly monitoring daily measurements of dozens of ocean variables, providing assessments of ocean health, and modeling the future of ocean dynamics.

This animation shows four years of sea surface temperature (SST) data from a NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory‘s Earth-system model. You can see several amazing features in this visualization, from the cycling of El Niño to La Niña, streaks of cooler water created by tropical cyclones, seasonal shifts in temperature, and even ocean currents and eddies–reinforcing the idea that there may be several ocean basins, but only one connected ocean.

Not only does the NOAA Satellite and Information Service house and distribute data such as these Earth-system models, but it also provides carefully analyzed, long-term climate data records based on satellite derived information that help validate the accuracy of such models.