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Low pressure system over Iceland
NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Jacques Descloitres
Taken on 4 September 2003, 14:10
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/68992/low-off-iceland
- Rights
- Public domain, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
About this work
A beautifully-formed low-pressure system swirls off the southwestern coast of Iceland, illustrating the maxim that "nature abhors a vacuum." The vacuum in this case would be a region of low atmospheric pressure. In order to fill this void, air from a nearby high-pressure system moves in, in this case bringing clouds along for the ride. And because this low-pressure system occurred in the Northern Hemisphere, the winds spun in toward the center of the low-pressure system in a counter-clockwise direction; a phenomenon known as the Coriolis force (in the Southern Hemisphere, the Coriolis force would be manifested in a clockwise direction of movement). The clouds in the image resembled pulled cotton and lace as they spun in a lazy hurricane-like pattern. This huge system swirled over the Denmark Strait in between Greenland and Iceland. The image was taken by the Aqua MODIS instrument on September 4, 2003.
