Flow of the Kuroshio Current
Dave Brown (NCAR), Frank Bryan (NCAR), Tim Scheitlin (NCAR)

The visualization was created from simulations conducted by CRIEPI and NCAR on the Earth Simulator, one of the world's 10 fastest computers located in Yokohama, Japan. The NCAR Command Language and a custom VTK program were used to process and visualize the data.
High resolution computer models of the global oceans reveal the serpentine flow of the Kuroshio Current as it meanders off the southern coast of Japan and transports warm water into the Northern Pacific. The Kuroshio is the strongest current in the North Pacific, analogous to the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, and has strong influences on fishing yields, marine navigation, and tropical storms that derive energy from its warm surface waters. Variations in the strength and path of the Kuroshio are associated with large scale shifts in climate patterns across the Pacific region. The colors in the image represent the surface ocean temperature in the month of March, and the shape depicts the sea surface height that is vertically exaggerated to help reveal the intricate detail of the flow.

Traveling