Online Access, Visualization and Analysis of TRMM Composite Climatology Products

One of the main goals of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) has been to accurately define the climatological surface rainfall in the tropics. This TRMM Composite Climatology (TCC) consists of a merger of selected TRMM rainfall products over both land and ocean to give a "TRMM-best" climatological estimate. There are 78 data files in this TCC product suite: 13 each (annual and month-of-year) for TRMM data products 2A12, 2A25, 2B31, 3B43, TCC, and standard deviation of TCC.

To facilitate data access, the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) has developed data services for the TCC product suite. First, the TCC product suite has been added to Mirador (http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/mirador/presentNavigation.pl?tree=project&project=TRMM&dataGroup=Climatology). Mirador is an Earth science data search tool developed at the GES DISC for accessing data archived at the GES DISC. It has a drastically simplified, clean interface and employs the Google mini appliance for metadata keyword searches. Other features include quick response, spatial and parameter subsetting, data file hit estimator, Gazetteer (geographic search by feature name capability), and an interactive shopping cart. Second, to facilitate data evaluation and discovery, we have developed a web based prototype tool (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/daac-bin/tcc_basic.pl) for visualizing and analyzing the TCC products. There are 9 analytical functions available and users can generate plots such as latitude-longitude maps, time series, scatter plots, etc. without downloading data. A more advanced prototype tool (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/daac-bin/tcc.pl) has been developed for those who want to inter-compare different climatology products. Finally, a FAQ page (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/precipitation/additional/applications/tcc-analysis-tool-faq) has been developed to provide basic information such as background and future plans. Examples will be presented.

Reference: Adler, R. F., J.-J. Wang, G. Gu, and George J. Huffman, 2009: A ten-year tropical rainfall climatology based on a composite of TRMM products. J. Meteorol. Soc. Japan, 87A, 281-293.