Geostationary satellites reveal motions of ocean surface fronts

A new method of locating and viewing ocean surface fronts is demonstrated in animations of daily composites of hourly sea surface temperatures derived from the NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES). The animation of the satellite images allows the human eye to separate the faster-moving residual clouds from slower-moving ocean currents, fronts and eddies. The animations produce the sense of an ocean in motion that is not apparent in individual satellite images. Three years of GOES animations of sea surface temperatures of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are used to illustrate the westward propagation of Pacific Tropical Instability Waves (TIW) during La Niña, the seaward deflection of the Gulf Stream at the Charleston Bump, a time series of the Loop Current and separation of six warm core eddies in the Gulf of Mexico, and the cyclonic eddies and westward-moving meridional fronts near the Hawaiian Islands.