Hurricane Data Analysis Tool: Global Merged IR Dataset Added

[Zhong Liu]

Hurricane Data Analysis Tool: Global Merged IR Dataset Added

Scientists, students, and applications users seeking on-the-fly
visualizations of hurricane-related satellite and model data can now
visualize and get access to the NCEP/CPC 4-km Global (60ºN - 60ºS)
Merged IR Brightness Temperature Dataset, through the publicly open GSFC
Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) Hurricane
Data Analysis tool:

http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/hurricane/trmm_quikscat_analysis.shtml .

Merged IR Brightness Temperature Dataset documentation is located at:

ftp://disc2.nascom.nasa.gov/data/TRMM/Documentation/global_full_res_IR_readme
.

With a web browser and few mouse clicks, users can produce
visualizations for all 8 years and 4.5 TB of Merged IR Brightness
Temperature data and generate black and white IR imagery and animation
without downloading any software and data, a priori. This is an
important addition to the current collection of multi-sensor datasets
already in the system, namely, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
(TRMM) precipitation, TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) sea surface
temperature (SST), NASA's daily Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) ocean
surface wind, NCEP Reanalysis sea level pressure (SLP) and NCEP
Reanalysis winds.

The NASA Goddard Hurricane Data Portal:

http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/hurricane/

currently a working prototype, is intended to assist researchers to
investigate key parameters for tropical cyclones, hurricanes and
typhoons around the world prior to selecting and downloading the data of
most interest. It also helps them to investigate other meteorological
phenomena, such as, precipitation, monsoon events, mesoscale convective
systems, etc. Current functions include area (latitude-longitude) and
time series (area averaging) plots and their overlays. More capabilities
and data will be added in the future.

The following are examples generated using the Hurricane Data Analysis
Tool:

1) A large scale imagery on August 31, 2008 at 23Z showing Hurricane
Gustav, Tropical Storm Hanna and Tropical Storm Ike:

ftp://disc2.nascom.nasa.gov/data/1/hurricane/animations/TropicalRegion.jpg
(see below)

2) An animation generated by this tool showing the 4km IR images every
30 minutes for 19 hours of Hurricane Ike on September 07, 2008. The
animation shows Ike’s well developed eye and rotational movement as it
moves to the West/Northwest:
ftp://disc2.nascom.nasa.gov/data/1/hurricane/animations/HurrIke.gif

QuikSCAT ocean surface winds are provided by the Physical Oceanography
Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) (http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov)
<http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov%29> . TMI SST data are provided by Remote
Sensing Systems (http://www.ssmi.com). <http://www.ssmi.com%29.> NCEP
sea level pressure, zonal and meridional wind at 1000, 850, and 200 hPa
level data are obtained from NCEP's Global Forecast System analysis
(http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov.data). <http://nomads.ncdc.noaa.gov.data%29.>

All other data are resident at the NASA GES DISC
(http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov) <http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov%29>

Similar interactive access to other data available at the GES DISC, as
well as online visualization and statistical analysis, is available via
the operational Giovanni system (http://giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov).
<http://giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov%29.>



--
Zhong Liu, Ph.D.
Zhong.Liu-1 at nasa.gov
George Mason University and
NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and
Information Services Center
NASA/GSFC, Code 610.2
Greenbelt. MD. 20771  U.S.A.
(301) 614-5764 (voice)
(301) 614-5268 (fax)
http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov
http://giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/hurricane/
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/hurricane/trmm_quikscat_analysis.shtml
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/agriculture/ais_sup/current_conditions.shtml