Visualization of the Polar Vortex from space
As visualized from space, the polar vortex is a beautiful, panchromatic cyclone of endlessly flowing eddies and currents. It's mesmerizing.
The animation you see here was generated by an interactive data analyzer, with each line representing the motion of stratospheric wind as it ripples from the eye of the polar cyclone and churns air down south.
In the full interactive version, you can zoom in and out, observing the winds of the polar vortex as they freeze the planet at different altitudes. The number of lines indicate how fast the wind is moving, which is also heat- mapped or, rather, cold- mapped -to the color of each wind stream.
Full version:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/01/30/0000Z/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-82.04,33.38,356
It truly is, I like these kind of visualisations
ReplyDeleteWow! Feels like that's the way how we should visualize most of the phase portraits ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_portrait ).
ReplyDeleteWow talk about your complex fluid dynamics problem!
ReplyDeleteOf course the vortex is what you notice first. It also indicates a subtle off shore slow for California, which I suppose explains our extreme lack of rainfall this winter.
ReplyDelete