Advanced / Particle Editor / View-Edit

The Particle button initiates a display of the particles in the PARDUMP files on a geographic background. You may shift the positions of one or more groups of particles and save the results in the same or a new file. The particles may be viewed against the background of observed concentrations from TOMS Files or AVHRR Files.

File Status Bar

The Status bar is split into halves. The left half identifies the PARDUMP file currently being displayed and/or edited, while the right half identifies the background file. When a PARDUMP file is being displayed/edited, the file name is displayed, along with the valid date of the forecast particle positions. The background file may be the default ARLMAP geographic background, or background observed data from either of two sources, the TOMS file or the AVHRR data. If either of the observation data file types is being used, the file name is displayed as well as the date for which the observation is valid.

Menu and Status Bar

On the right side of the Menu and Status Bar are the current status labels of the mouse pointer. The center two labels give the instantaneous latitude and longitude, in degrees, of the mouse pointer. The right label gives the value of the background observation at that point. The meaning of the "observation value" depends on the type of background displayed. The left-hand label gives the valid date of the current Particle dump file, if open. The left side of the Menu and Status Bar are menu buttons, with the following effects:

File Menu

Open PARDUMP / Save As / Quit

This menu enables the user to specify the PARDUMP file to be loaded and displayed on the current background, and the file in which the edited results will be saved.

Edit

Zoom / Unzoom

The zoom function is provided by windowing. Click on the zoom button, move the cursor to one corner of the area of interest, then drag to the opposite corner. A rubber-band box displays the area to be magnified. A series of Zoom operations may be stacked; the unzoom button reverses them in sequence.

Particle Shift / Select Area

The particle shift sub-menu provides the editing of particle positions in an area-by-area fashion. When a PARDUMP File is loaded and displayed, an area may be selected for editing, first by clicking on the select area menu button, then moving the mouse to one corner of the area and dragging the mouse to the opposite corner. If the desired area is not selected, the Undo Area button will allow another selection.

New Pos / Undo New Pos

The New Pos button allows specification of how far the particles in the selected area will be shifted. After clicking on the menu button, place the mouse anywhere on the geographic display and drag the mouse. The arrow indicates the amount and direction by which the particles in the selected area will be shifted. Particles outside the area will be shifted by an amount that tapers rapidly with distance from the selected area. Repeated New Pos action will refine the desired shift.

Complete Area Shift / Undo Area

When the desired particle shifts have been made, Complete Area Shift should be selected. As many separate areas as desired may be acted on in this way. When all such areas have been completed, the edited positions can be saved to a file.

Background

ArlMap / TomsFile / AvhrrMap

Permits the selection of background information. The ArlMap display is always available, but the background displays for TOMS data and AVHRR data must be downloaded separately.

Cloud On/Off button

This button will cause the particle cloud display to appear and disappear as needed to judge how particle shift is needed against the background.

Geographic display

The display holds one of three types of background. The base display (ArlMap) is a geographic background of the world. The status bar observation value simply reads "0" when the mouse is over water area and "1" when the mouse is traversing land area.

The TOMS File display provides a color coded representation of analysis of aerosols from the "Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer". A brown color represents missing data, white color represents negative values (corresponding to reflective aerosols) and a range of warmer colors represents various positive values (corresponding to absorbing aerosols. The status bar observation value reads the value itself, if available, or "m" for missing if not available.

The AVHRR Map display provides a representation of analyzed data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer. Since the analysis is valid only over water, the land areas are represented in green and the status bar observation value is "m" for missing there. Otherwise, it gives a reading of the aerosol depth. Over water, the display represents positive values in various shades of gray, with the darkest being the highest. A red color represents negative values. The TOMS File and AVHRR Map displays represent data valid at specific times. The valid time is presented on the right side of the File status bar.



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