Atlantic Ocean, cloud-free. Computer graphic of the Atlantic Ocean on an Earth globe, generated using satellite and mapping data. The data combines cloud-free satellite images of the land and sea surface in natural colour. Deserts (brown), vegetation (green), snow and ice (white) and rivers and lakes (blue) are shown. Ocean colour variations, mostly in coastal regions, are due to sand banks, river silt, and phytoplankton near the sea surface. Surrounding the Atlantic are Europe, the Mediterranean, and Africa (right), North America, the Caribbean, and South America (left), and Greenland and the Arctic (top). The image includes a ray-traced atmospheric haze.