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El Niño as You've Never Seen it Before

These maps show sea level anomalies from February 12-22, 2016. The Jason-3 satellite has produced its first map of sea surface height, which corresponds well to data from its predecessor, Jason-2. Higher-than-normal sea levels are red; lower-than-normal sea levels are blue. El Nino is visible as the red blob in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Image: NASA

The first complete map of the world's sea surface height has revealed the 2015-16 El Niño in unprecedented detail. The map was created using data from Jason-3, a new US-European oceanography satellite mission launched with the help of Nasa. It shows the first 10 days of data collected once Jason-3 reached its orbit of 830 miles (1,336km) last month, revealing the state of the ongoing El Niño event that began early last year.