Visualization and Analysis of Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Satellite Sounder Data
“Launched into Earth-orbit on May 4, 2002, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, AIRS, moves climate research and weather prediction into the 21st century. AIRS is one of six instruments on board the Aqua satellite, part of the NASA Earth Observing System. AIRS along with its partner microwave instrument, Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A), represents the most advanced atmospheric sounding system ever deployed in space. Together these instruments observe the global water and energy cycles, climate variation and trends, and the response of the climate system to increased greenhouse gases.
“AIRS uses cutting-edge infrared technology to create 3-dimensional maps of air and surface temperature, water vapor, and cloud properties. With 2378 spectral channels, AIRS has a spectral resolution more than 100 times greater than previous IR sounders and provides more accurate information on the vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature and moisture. AIRS can also measure trace greenhouse gases such as ozone, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and methane.
“AIRS and AMSU-A share the Aqua satellite with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), and the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS (AMSR-E). Aqua is part of NASA’s “A-train”, a series of high-inclination, Sun-synchronous satellites in low Earth orbit designed to make long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, solid Earth, atmosphere, and oceans.”
This video demonstrates a component of a series of tools developed by the Redlands Institute at the University of Redlands, CA as part of a collaborative project with JPL to download, visualize, and analyze source AIRS satellite sounder data. The tools are developed on top of ESRI’s ArcGIS suite of GIS products utilizing ArcObjects. This video demonstrates the data loader component. This component allows the user to select a phenomenon, date range, and geographic extent to download. The tool then inteprets this query, finds the matching data files on an ftp site and downloads them. Once downloaded the HDF formatted data is processed and converted for display and analysis in ArcGIS.
These videos demonstrate the ArcScene version of the visualizer component.
These animations were created using the AIRS Granule Data Loader and Visualizer developed by The Redlands Institute in collaboration with JPL.
This video shows some sample outputs created by the AIRS Granule Data Loader and Visualizer.
Just wanted to let you know I posted a feature on the AIRS web site that points to your blog page here. Thanks for gathering the videos together to help folks use the AIRS data with these GIS tools. The web feature can be found on the AIRS web site at: http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/story_archive/Using_AIRS_Data_with_ArcGIS/