A team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), University of Redlands (UR) and Environmental Science Research, Inc. (ESRI) recently developed a method allowing native read of multi-dimensional swath datasets into the GIS environment for analysis. As part of this effort, a science use case investigation of water vapor transport over the Pacific Ocean was undertaken. Understanding and predicting water cycles and water resources are important for the west coast and especially California. We apply GIS techniques to measurements from the Atmospheric Infra-Red Sounder (AIRS), Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E), Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), and other in-situ and model data to characterize the 3-dimensional distribution of atmospheric water vapor as storm systems affect California. We relate height resolved water vapor and surface winds to location and amount of rainfall on the west coast.

Keywords: AIRS, AMSR-E, TRMM, Swath, Geographic Information Systems, GIS, Water cycles, Storm systems