The Climatological Seasonal Cycle of SST in the Gulf of Maine: A Movie Loop

These movie loops represent a climatological seasonal cycle of sea surface temperature (SST) patterns in the Gulf of Maine from Day 1 (January 1) to Day 365 (December 31). NOTE: the coldest water extending down from the Scotia shelf in mid - late winter and the development of a warm pool in late summer in the western Gulf of Maine that clearly defines and isolates colder water that remains all year over Georges Bank.

Establishing and quantifying the MEAN annual cycle is a critical research tool as we monitor the Gulf of Maine for interannual changes that may be important to both physical and biological processes.

The movies show mean patterns in each day calculated from 13 years (1985 - 1997) of daily SST satellite images using a 7-day box-car averaging technique. Each day, approximately 4 satellite images of the Gulf of Maine are received and processed. The movies therefore represent data from approxiamtely 19,000 satellite images. Each image is ~720 Kb, so this represents over 13.5 gigabytes of data. A synoptic GOM movie and a zoom of the Eastern Maine Coastal Current (EMCC) area are available for viewing.

Note: Set your MPEG movie viewer to continuously loop the movie for best effect. Movies are best viewed with the Quicktime Player.

View GOM Movie

View EMCC Movie