The JPL tropical cyclone information system: design and implementation

Hurricane research today is in an extraordinary position. Never before has such a wide breadth of scientific measurements from in-situ, aircraft, and satellite instruments been so readily available to researchers. However, due to the sheer volume of information, many hurricane research websites are not equipped to handle an extensive archive of both data files and images. The JPL Tropical Cyclone Portal was designed to fill this gap with the goal of providing a one-stop shop for researchers to access all available observed and modeled information relating to specific hurricanes of interests.

As currently configured, the JPL Tropical Cyclone Portal has three main features for researchers. The first feature consists of storm-scale data and visualization tools. From a timeline of a given storm, users can download data sets that include AIRS, CloudSAT, MLS, AMSU-B, QuikSCAT, Argo floats, GPS, and many others. Storm data is subsetted to a 1000x1000 km window around the hurricane track for six geographic regions, and all the available data during the life time of any storm can be downloaded with one mouse click. Users can also view pre-generated storm-scale plots from all these data sets that are all co-located to the same temporal and spatial parameters.

The second offering from this web portal are large-scale data sets and associated visualization tools powered by Google Maps. On this interactive map, researchers can view a particular storm's intensity and track. Users may also overlay large-scale data such as aerosol maps from MODIS and MISR, and a gridded 5-km sea surface temperature (SST) to gain an understanding of the large-scale environment of the storm. For example, by using this map, the cold sea-surface temperature wake can be tracked as a storm passes by.

The third feature of this portal deals with interactive model and data analysis. Tools are being developed where researchers can dynamically generate statistics and plots to compare models with observed data. High resolution models based on the Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model can be compared with data sets so that users can see what model improvements can be made and what additional scientific measurements should be collected on the next generation of Earth science satellite missions.

In this presentation, we will describe the current configuration of the JPL Tropical Cyclone Portal and demonstrate how it will be an asset to researchers. Future plans for the site will also be discussed.