Ocean Science www.ocean-sci.net 1812-0784 1812-0792 5 4 2009 10.5194/os-5-447-2009 http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/447/2009/ http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/447/2009/os-5-447-2009.html http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/447/2009/os-5-447-2009.pdf 447 460 2009-10-26 The multifractal structure of satellite sea surface temperature maps can be used to obtain global maps of streamlines A. Turiel turiel@cmima.csic.es V. Nieves E. Garcia-Ladona J. Font M.-H. Rio G. Larnicol Institut de Ciències del Mar, CSIC, Barcelona, Spain CLS – Space Oceanography Division, Toulouse, France Nowadays Earth observation satellites provide information about many relevant variables of the ocean-climate system, such as temperature, moisture, aerosols, etc. However, to retrieve the velocity field, which is the most relevant dynamical variable, is still a technological challenge, specially in the case of oceans. New processing techniques, emerged from the theory of turbulent flows, have come to assist us in this task. 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