Recent studies have revealed that many tropical infectious diseases are linked to weather and climate. In several case studies, investigators have found that above normal warm temperatures and rainfall during El Nino events were linked to outbreaks of many tropical diseases, such as, leptospirosis, bartonellosis, Rift Valley fever, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, malaria, Ross River virus, etc. Along with other environmental parameters, rainfall has also been used in many disease related applications, such as, mapping malaria distribution in West Africa. However, in many tropical regions, it is still challenging to make rainfall estimates due to sparse network of rain gauges. To better understand tropical disease transmission and develop applications for these regions, it is necessary to have rainfall data with adequate spatial and temporal resolutions.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is a joint U.S.-Japan satellite mission to monitor tropical and subtropical (40 S - 40 N)precipitation and to estimate its associated latent heating. The TRMM satellite provides the first detailed and comprehensive dataset on the four dimensional distribution of rainfall and latent heating over vastly undersampled tropical and subtropical oceans and continents. The TRMM satellite was launched on November 27, 1997. Data from the TRMM satellite are archived and distributed by the NASA GSFC DAAC. In August 2001, the TRMM was boosted from an altitude of 350 km to 402.5 km, thus extending the satellite life span and data collection for few more years.

This poster will introduce TRMM rainfall data products (daily 1 degree rainfall product (3B42) and monthly 1 degree rainfall product(3B43)), a list of software tools for data processing, analyzing and visualization. Because historical climate data play an important role in studying past events in tropical regions, the poster will provide basic rainfall comparisons between the Willmott's climate data and the TRMM gridded rainfall (3B43). Examples of using the TRMM rainfall data sets in tropical infectious studies will be presented. Finally, the poster will list information and resources for health research at the NASA GSFC DAAC.