Evolution of the Tropical Cyclone Integrated Data Exchange and Analysis System (TC-IDEAS)

The Tropical Cyclone Integrated Data Exchange and Analysis System (TC-IDEAS) is being jointly developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) as part of NASA's Hurricane Science Research Program. The long-term goal is to create a comprehensive tropical cyclone database of satellite and airborne observations, in-situ measurements and model simulations containing parameters that pertain to the thermodynamic and microphysical structure of the storms; the air-sea interaction processes; and the large-scale environment. One aspect of TC-IDEAS is centered about JPL's TC portal (http://tropicalcyclone.jpl.nasa.gov), a global online historical database that enables assessment of these parameters both at the large-scale (e.g., SST produced from a daily composite of satellite overpasses), and also on the storm scale. The storm scale database (data and associated imagery) currently includes per-overpass observations from TRMM-TMI/PR, CloudSat, AMSR-E, SSMI, QuikSCAT, AIRS, AMSU/MHS, MLS, OMI, and GPS-RO temperature and humidity profiles. The portal will utilize the NASA Real Time Mission Monitor (RTMM) and other visualization tools to provide visual overlays of storm tracks, satellite and aircraft flight tracks, and various science products, as relevant for a given storm. Further improvements will include selected mesoscale model simulations and simulated radar and radiometric products.

During August-September 2010, the joint NASA/NOAA Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) field experiment will be conducted to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. In preparation for the field phase, the JPL TC portal was upgraded with a collection of basin scale, near-real time satellite products pertaining to the atmospheric and surface conditions over the Atlantic basin. To maximize coverage over this large area, six-hour composites (updated hourly) are produced for a number of different products derived from several low Earth orbiting satellites. Examples include scatterometer ocean surface wind vectors, a rain intensity indicator, total precipitable water vapor, 85 GHz brightness temperature composites, hourly geostationary composites, CAPE and lifted index stability indices and the capability to plot the skew-T diagram associated with these indices. The delivery of these data is driven by the use of the Google Earth API to time select, plot, overlay and animate selected products. We present a demonstration of the latest updates to the TC-IDEAS site, as well as to the GRIP interface. The GRIP site is located at http://tropicalcyclone.jpl.nasa.gov/grip.