Principal Investigator (PI): Frank J. Wentz, Remote Sensing Systems
This project is a continuation of NASA's Research, Education and Applications Solutions Network (REaSoN) project titled Distributed Information Services for Climate and Ocean Products and Visualizations for Earth Research (DISCOVER). DISCOVER is a NASA funded collaboration between Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and NASA's Global Hydrometeorology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center (GHRC DAAC). The major focus of DISCOVER is to provide highly accurate, long-term geophysical products derived from satellite microwave sensors. These products are suitable for some of the most demanding Earth research applications and are available via easy-to-use display and data access tools. Most of the products are generated in near real-time (3-12 hours) on a 24x7 basis, so they also are suitable for some weather applications.
DISCOVER's basic products include sea surface temperature (SST) and wind, atmospheric water vapor, cloud water, and rain rate. From these basic retrievals, an array of higher-level products are derived (1) by merging retrievals from different satellites on different platforms and (2) by combining different types of retrievals. An example of the first type of derived product is the optimally interpolated SST fields created from two different microwave sensor observations: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission’s (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - EOS (AMSR-E). An example of the second type is evaporation fields derived by combining SST, wind, and water vapor. Also our DISCOVER products are vital to value-added products released by other scientists, including the Ocean Surface Wind Velocity data set, from the Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) funded project, "A Cross-Calibrated Multi-Platform Ocean Surface Wind Velocity Data Set for Meteorological and Oceanographic Applications".
DISCOVER has an extensive user base and these users have a high level of confidence in our microwave products. Some of these products (water vapor time series for example) have become a standard in the climate community. DISCOVER is highly relevant to current climate research, particularly with respect to the water and energy cycle. At the completion of this proposed work, we will have nearly 30 years of consistently processed wind speed, water vapor, cloud water, and rain rate products. It would be hard to overstate how important these Earth Science Data Records will be to climate research.
Distributed by GHRC DAAC