NRL tropical cyclone web page: A decade of evolution

The NRL tropical cyclone (TC) web page has incorporated unique satellite microwave products enabling radar-like views of storm structure, intensity and location for the past decade. Ready access has benefited the Department of Defense (DOD), World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warning centers, researchers and the general public via the near real-time Internet product suite and an online product archive. The TC web product list has grown with the addition of new microwave sensors as well as new visible/Infrared data sets when they become available to NRL via our extensive data partners (FNMOC, AFWA, NOAA, NASA, NAVO, and CSU). Also, user suggestions have led to key upgrades that highlight user friendly innovations such as color coded data latency buttons and multi-sensor product overlays.

The inherently poor temporal sampling issues relevant to low earth orbiting (LEO) satellites has been partially mitigated by combining both operational and “research” sensors. The TC web team successfully helped research sensor sponsors understand that near real-time data sets would benefit a very large scientific and public audience and fortunately most other research sensors have followed this path. Thus, the TC web page acts as a one-stop shop for remote sensing products and include visible/Infrared, passive microwave imagers and sounders, and active microwave radar sensors. Each sensor has inherent strengths and weaknesses, but the sum of the total capability addresses many of the TC monitoring needs within the global TC community. This presentation will highlight the cross sensor benefits achieved by multi-sensor combinations and how the number of available platforms will degrade over the next 15-20 years.

The NRL TC web page is basically a visualization tool with which to view static jpeg products. Thus, many potential applications are lacking. Therefore, NRL is testing Google Earth (GE) as a platform to view TC web page products since it provides enhanced flexibility to display multi-sensor products via user defined priorities that change across the user spectrum. Examples will illustrate several of these capabilities, with specific highlights focusing on sensors containing three dimensional (3-D) data sets (TRMM and CloudSat radars) and the ability to overlay collaborative information such as scatterometer surface winds and 85 GHz products.

http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc_pages/tc_home.html