. at a period of about 41,000 years.
Obliquity perturbations tend to amplify the seasonal cycle in the high
latitudes of both hemispheres simultaneously, with the effect
small in the tropics and maximum at the poles.
See Williams (1993).
OCTS scans the Earth's surface using a rotating mirror in the direction perpendicular to the satellite flight path. It has eight bands in the visible and near-infrared region and four bands in the thermal region, with the bands determined by the spectral reflectance characteristics of the objects being observed as well as atmospheric window and correction considerations. The spatial resolution is about 700 meters with a swath width of about 1400 km on the ground, and the orbit allows the same area on the ground to be observed every three days. This instrument will fly on the ADEOS mission. See the OCTS Web site.
N and 150 E.
It is bounded by the Siberian coast to the west and north, the
Kamchatka Peninsula to the east, and the Kurile Islands to the
south and southeast. It covers an area of about 1,600,000 km,
has an average depth of about 860 m, and a maximum depth of
3370 m in the Kurile Basin. It is connected to both the
Pacific Ocean and the Japan Sea via narrow passages, the
most important ones being (for the former) the Boussole
Strait (2318 m) and the Kruzenshtern Strait (1920 m) and
(for the latter) the Tatarskyi Strait (50 m) and the
Soya (or La Perouse) Strait (200 m).
The prominent surface circulation feature is the Soya Current, an extension of the Tsushima Current that flows through the southern part of the Okhotsk Sea. The current shear between this and the more quiescent offshore waters frequently produces eddies of around 10-50 km diameter. See Zenkevitch (1963) and Tomczak and Godfrey (1994).