{"id":8241,"date":"2012-04-04T09:35:35","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T14:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=8241"},"modified":"2012-04-04T09:37:29","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T14:37:29","slug":"van-gogh-on-the-water-visualizing-ocean-currents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/04\/04\/van-gogh-on-the-water-visualizing-ocean-currents\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Gogh on the Water: Visualizing Ocean Currents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><object width=\"625\" height=\"352\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"intl_lang=en-us&amp;photo_secret=b4d5c22cb3&amp;photo_id=7009056027&amp;hd_default=false\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/apps\/video\/stewart.swf?v=109786\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"625\" height=\"352\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/apps\/video\/stewart.swf?v=109786\" flashvars=\"intl_lang=en-us&amp;photo_secret=b4d5c22cb3&amp;photo_id=7009056027&amp;hd_default=false\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Ocean currents may seem like a far away thing for Texans from the Hill Country to the High Plains, but weather patterns in the seas have an important effect on the state&#8217;s climate. The <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/drought\/\">record single-year Texas drought<\/a>, for instance, was mostly due to back-to-back years of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/la-nina\/\">La Ni\u00f1a<\/a>, a weather pattern\u00a0where the surface temperatures are cooler in the Pacific, which creates\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/09\/a-dryer-hotter-than-normal-winter-on-the-way-for-texas\/\">drier, warmer weather in the southern U.S.<\/a>\u00a0And those surface temperatures are <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sea_surface_temperature\">influenced by ocean currents<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But despite the havoc they wreak, ocean currents and temperatures can be a beautiful thing. Artistic, even. As you can see in a <a href=\"http:\/\/svs.gsfc.nasa.gov\/vis\/a000000\/a003800\/a003827\/\">new video by NASA<\/a>, when you put the data behind ocean currents in motion, it becomes a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vangoghgallery.com\/painting\/starryindex.html\">van Gogh-esque<\/a> vision.<\/p>\n<p>NASA assembled the video, titled &#8216;Perpetual Ocean,&#8217; from\u00a0&#8220;ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through December 2007,&#8221; according to its webpage. &#8220;The visualization does not include a narration or annotations; the goal was to use ocean flow data to create a simple, visceral experience.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/svs.gsfc.nasa.gov\/vis\/a000000\/a003800\/a003827\/\">You can read more at the NASA website.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ocean currents may seem like a far away thing for Texans from the Hill Country to the High Plains, but weather patterns in the seas have an important effect on the state&#8217;s climate. The record single-year Texas drought, for instance, was mostly due to back-to-back years of\u00a0La Ni\u00f1a, a weather pattern\u00a0where the surface temperatures are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58],"tags":[61,140,110],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8251,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8241\/revisions\/8251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}