About Eddy Kinetic Energy (2/2)

Lively Data : January 17, 2006

Last month (Lively Data: About Eddy Kinetic Energy (1)) we focus on a method to compute and plot eddy kinetic energy (EKE) using Live Access Server. EKE plots illustrated strong frontal structure off Rio de la Plata Estuary.

 

EKE in cm²/s²
Zoom on confluence area

Eddy kinetic energy in Brazil-Malvinas confluence on November 5, 2005.
We choosed "solid white" color palette to display isocontours; minimum, maximum and step values can be modified in contour level field ("output options" menu).
Choosing a good color scale is realy important. Mesoscale structures with strong kinetic energy are then enhanced.

 

 

 

On the other hand, Brazil-Malvinas confluence can be simply visualiazed using geostrophic currents.

Geostrophic velocities in cm/s

Geostrophic velocities in Brazil-Malvinas confluence, november 5 2005.
Select "near real time absolute geostrophic velocities" dataset then Vector (U,V) variable. We used slices here to plot currents because they are much easier to see than on the whole area. Slices each have 4° of thickness in latitude. Eddies coming from the confluence phenomena are there.

 

 

 

 

 

See also :

Use the  Live Access Server