Global atmospheric temperatures are measured at multiple levels from the lower troposphere to the stratosphere. The image above shows temperatures at the 600 MB level using data combined from the AMSU-A instruments on NOAA-15 and NOAA-16.

The DISCOVER Project

The primary objective of the Distributed Information Services for Climate and Ocean Products and Visualizations for Earth Research (DISCOVER) Project is to provide highly accurate, long-term ocean and climate products suitable for the most demanding Earth research applications via easy-to-use display and data access tools. These products are derived from a large network of satellite microwave sensors going back to 1979. Most of the products are produced in near real-time (3-12 hours) on a 24x7 basis and hence are also suitable for some weather applications. The products include sea-surface temperature and wind, air temperature, atmospheric water vapor, cloud water, and rain rate. A key element of DISCOVER is the merging of multiple sensors from multiple platforms into geophysical data sets consistent in both space and time.

Information Technology research goals for DISCOVER include:

• On-line services for data access and visualization
• Interoperability technologies for improved usability
• Flexible architecture to adapt to changing user requirements

Information Technology development approach:

• Exploring new technologies
• Integrating them into DISCOVER information system
• Hardening selected tools and making them available to the wider community

DISCOVER is data format neutral. Products are generated in space-efficient binary format. Earth Science Markup Language (ESML) is used to provide full descriptions of data syntax. Translators are provided to convert data to other popular formats as needed. ESML is the basis for dataset independent services implemented and planned for DISCOVER

DISCOVER is a follow-on activity to our Passive Microwave ESIP and SSM/I-SSMIS Pathfinder projects and build on user interface technology available through these programs. In addition, DISCOVER contains a Technology Development component that provides an extended set of user services and visualization tools to greatly enhance the utility of the products and increase online analysis of these data. In particular, event-driven data delivery are implemented that significantly advance distributed data capabilities. Our users require these data for their research and need support of their efforts. We solicit feedback from our users via user meetings and web-based communication tools. DISCOVER's flexibility enables it to adapt to evolving user requirements and make a significant contribution to the evolution of the SEEDS distributed data and services environment.