Most meteorological satellites designed to monitor the
atmosphere do not provide "good looks" at the ocean, largely
because they are purposely lower resolution systems that need to
monitor atmospheric properties at gross scales. Their thermal
bands do broadly indicate temperature differences in oceanic
water that give some information on current flow. The NOAA
satellites, for example, produce valuable thermal data that can
be plotted at regional to global scales. But, other aspects of
the marine surface waters including sediment patterns, sea
state, wind flow, wave patterns, planktonic life, etc. are of
vital interest to oceanographers. A number of satellites
dedicated to gathering oceanic data have notably increased our
understanding of these great bodies of water; some of this
information bears directly on weather and climate control. This
page describes some general types of observational data from
such satellites and shows the value of continual monitoring by
focusing on the El Nino and La Nino thermal ev