k. Television Pictures* 



Television pictures of the earth's surface have been available from 

 a number of satellites. However, only the polar orbited Nimbus and ESSA, 

 and the equatorial and geo-synchronous ATS satellites have produced 

 television pictures with the detail necessary for oceanographic work. 



Some of the oceanic features initially apparent to an investigator 

 of satellite television pictures are the delineation made by clouds of 

 large currents and upwelling. For example, the picture in Figure 10, 

 taken by ATS 2, apparently defines the cold Peru Current as well as its 

 westward extension, the Pacific South Equatorial Current. However, the 

 actual location of these currents at the time has not been substantiated 

 by ground observations. It can only be assumed that the low surface 

 clouds off the South American coast and north and south of the Equator 

 define what may be considered the general region of the two currents. 

 The historical position of these currents, however, seems to substantiate 

 this assumption and it is the opinion of the authors that the actual 

 position of the currents as compared to the cloud delineation is within 

 the resolution of the satellite picture. 



Figure 11 is one of the few examples available of near -simultaneous 



day 



( following ) current position measurement and satellite television 



coverage. In this instance, the alignment of the clouds was noticed 

 by a Naval Oceanographic Office scientist, R.L. Pickett, aboard an 

 aircraft using an airborne radiation thermometer to determine the 



* The term television is used here in the broad sense to differentiate 

 between pictures taken by an emulsion process and those taken by an 

 electron scanner. 



21 



