Introducing CDAT, the CIRA Data Assimilation Testbed

The CIRA Data Assimilation Testbed, or CDAT for short, is an educational website at CIRA that is being developed as part of an NSF grant that displays the output from three different versions of microwave brightness temperature (Gaussian-fits-all, mixed Lognormal-Gaussian, and logarithmic transform) mixing-ratio and temperature retrieval system in near real time over different areas, along with output from non-Gaussian detection algorithms.

The displays will enable users to see how the three different retrieval systems are behaving where the detection algorithms are indicating that there is a non-Gaussian signal, so that a user can determine what the impacts are of the Gaussian assumption on the retrievals in non-Gaussian flow regimes.