Hypnotizing Time-Lapse Vid Shows 30-Months of Ocean Currents From Space

In an effort to create a “visceral experience” out of ocean flow data, NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio has produced “Perpetual Ocean,” a time-lapsed video showing the ocean currents over a 30-month period in a less than two minute time-lapsed video.

The currents were taken from NASA/JPL’s computational model Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean from June 2005 through December 2007. This model is the highest resolution showing global ocean and sea-ice, but only surface flow is show in this video. NASA explains that the dark patterns under the ocean represent the undersea bathymetry and there is a topographic land exaggeration of 20x and bathymetric exaggeration of 40x.

Watch the simulation:

Gizmodo describes it as a “short film that looks like it sprang from a Vincent Van Gogh canvas.” Do you agree?