A World of ECCO Visualizations

Thanks to powerful supercomputers, NASA now offers a large suite of visualizations that you can customize in a few easy steps. This page is designed to help you navigate among hundreds of videos and images that have been pre-computed using a 14-month global simulation of the ocean (September 2011 to November 2012).

Visualizations of the ECCO Project's 1/48° MITgcm Simulation

Visit this URL: Visualizations of the ECCO Project's 1/48° MITgcm Simulation (aka llc4320)
Choose a series - 5 options
Choose a measurement type (a.k.a. "Scalar") – 21 options
Choose a depth (a.k.a. "Level") – 90 options for 3D scalars and 1 option for 2D scalars
Click on an image to reveal a table with options for your custom visualized data

PDF Version of step-by-step instructions (399 KB)

Series

The series – Global, 8 Regions, 128 Regions, Arctic – offer 2 or 3 options for pixel resolution (in km), each of which corresponds to a specific animation size (in pixels).

Overview	Ranges of Pixel Spatial Resolution / Animation Sizes for each Series
Global	43 km / 1000 x 600	22 km / 2000 x 1200	12 km / 3600 x 2160
8 Regions	22 km / 800 x 600	11 km / 1600 x 1200	6 km / 2880 x 2160
128 Regions	5.4 km / 800 x 600	2.7 km / 1600 x 1200
Arctic - 1 Region	12 km / 1200 x 1080	6 km / 2400 x 2160	Click here to learn more about Arctic grid projections
Arctic - 30 Regions	3.7 km / 800 x 600	1.8 km / 1600 x 1200	Click here to learn more about Arctic grid projections

Measurement Type & Depth

Some measurement types produce more colorful maps than others, as shown below. Measurements are parsed between 3D and 2D options. 3D have 90 ocean depth options. 2D have ocean surface data only (e.g., air-sea fluxes, surface winds).

3D Choose one of 90 Levels: 0.5 m to 6301 m depth
	Temperature (Theta) Salt East-West Velocity (U) North-South Velocity (V) Vertical Velocity (W)
	Vertical Vorticity (UVvort) Not available for Arctic regions; only every fourth level is available for other regions
	Horizontal Speed (UVspeed) Only every fourth level is available for the 1-, 8-, and 128-region series

2D One Level only: 0.5 meters depth
	Net Upward Shortwave Radiation (oceQsw) Net Upward Surface Heat Flux (oceQnet) Effective Snow Thickness (SIhsnow) Sea-Ice Salinity (SIhsalt) Effective Ice Thickness (SIheff) Fractional Ice-covered Area (SIarea) Ocean Bottom Pressure (PhiBot)
	Net Upward Salt Flux (oceSflux) Net Upward Freshwater Flux (oceFWflx) Sea Surface Height (Eta)
	Mixing Layer Depth (KPPhbl)
	Surface Wind Speed (oceTAUspeed)
	Surface Wind Vorticity (oceTAUvort) Not available for Arctic regions

Visualized Data

After completing the previous steps, a map will appear comprised of 1 (global or Arctic), 8, 30, or 128 images. Clicking on any image will reveal a table with several options.

Click a button to designate the Timestep (row) and Animation Pixel Resolution and File Size (column). Purple arrows below show the general trends in file sizes… specific file size information will be listed in each cell of the table.

Example Visualizations

Global mean time-series of sea level and ocean bottom pressure (in equivalent sea level) of V4r4 in comparison to observations

3D image of global salt (salinity) at 0.5 m depth (Level 0). Data are from 13-Sep-11 and Practical Salinity Units (PSU) are used (gray color scale).

3D video of global salt at 252 m depth (Level 30). Orange areas are shallower than 252 m. Salinity data begin on 13-Sep-11 and run through 15-Nov-12. Time step between scenes is 1 hour (MP4, 4.6 MB).

3D video of north Pacific (one of 8 regions) horizontal speed at 0.5 m depth. Data begin on 13-Sep-11 and run through 15-Nov-12 and units are meters per second (blue color scale). Time step between scenes is 24 hours (MP4, 6 MB).

3D video of area that includes the Galapagos Islands (one of 128 regions) vertical vorticity at 139 m depth (Level 20). Data begin on 13-Sep-11 and run through 15-Nov-12 and units are 1/f scaled (red-blue color scale). Time step between scenes is 12 hours (MP4, 8.7 MB).

2D video of video of global surface wind speed (Level 0). Data begin on 13-Sep-11 and run through 15-Nov-12 and units are N/m2 (rainbow color scale). Time step between scenes is 24 hours (MP4, 9.8 MB).

Cropped 2D video of Arctic (1 region) effective ice thickness. Data begin on 13-Sep-11 and run through 15-Nov-12. Units are meters from 0 to 3.69 (gray scale). Time step between scenes is 24 hours (MP4, 2.7 MB).

Visualizations of ECCO's 1/48° MITgcm Simulation