MYSTERIOUS spirals in the glitter of sunlight on the sea may reveal intricate
mixing beneath the waves, say oceanographers in California.
Thirty years ago, Apollo astronauts noticed spirals 10 to 25 kilometres
across in the pattern of sunlight reflecting off the ocean. The patterns have
been extensively photographed from the space shuttle, but no one knew why they
formed.
Walter Munk and Larry Armi of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La
Jolla, California, and their colleagues studied 400 photographs of the spirals
in the archives of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. They conclude
that subsurface currents are…
