AIRS

Frequently Asked Questions


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Q.  I would like some information about the pressure, temperature, vorticity
(circulation), velocity etc. distrbution inside a hurricane. Do you have
such data available?

  

A.  We retrieve the atmospheric temperature and precipitable water vapor
profile from the observed microwave and infrared radiances in partly
cloudy fields of view. Once the cloud fraction within a 50 km (at nadir)
field exceeds 70%, retrievals are problematical. Areas of active
precipitation, or where much of the microwave radiation is scattered by
ice crystals, are not retrievable. We do not retrieve wind velocity.

Our standard product of temperature and water vapor may be of interest
to you, and is freely available from the Goddard DAAC. If you to to the
URL

http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/AIRS/index.shtml

you will find links to our documentation describing our data products,
simple IDL and MATLAB readers, and also the data which you may download
directly from the Data Pool or order on tape.

The Data Pool link is

http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/datapool/AIRS/

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