Sea surface temperature monitor and predict the El Niño phenomenon. Weather satellites have been available to determine sea surface temperature information since 1967, with the first global composites created during 1970. Since 1982, satellites have been increasingly utilized to measure SST and have allowed its spatial and temporal variation to be viewed more fully. Satellite measurements of SST are in reasonable agreement with in situ temperature measurements. The satellite measurement is made by sensing the ocean radiation in two or more wavelengths within the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum or other parts of the spectrum which can then be empirically related to
Pacific Ocean a new ocean. He named it "Mar del Sur" (literally, "Sea of the South" or "South Sea") because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian ("Spanish") expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519. Magellan called the ocean "Pacífico" (or "Pacific" meaning, "peaceful") because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the "Sea of Magellan" in his honor until the eighteenth century. Although Magellan