National Aeronautics and Space Administration official home page

 

University of Rhode Island official home page

 

Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island official home page

 

Other Data Portals:

Sea Surface TemperatureSea surface temperature field for the western North Atlantic showing the Gulf Stream off the eastern coast of the United States

Sea Surface HeightSea Surface Height field of the eastern Pacific Ocean showing a strong El Nino.

Ocean Surface WindsSurface ocean wind field under a hurricane.

Ocean ColorChlorophyll field of the North and South Atlantic.

Ocean Surface PrecipitationRainfall intensity near the center of Hurricane Katrina shows areas of deep convection where latent heat is being released into the storm.

Other Ocean DataAverage distribution of water vapor in January 2003, measured from the Earth's surface to the top of the atmosphere.

Rainfall intensity near the center of Hurricane Katrina shows areas of deep convection where latent heat is being released into the storm.

Ocean Surface Precipitation Data Portal

The following list summarizes some of the important characteristics of OPeNDAP served data sets accessible through this portal. Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) are currently being developed to search and access these data collections and will soon be available in the Matlab OPeNDAP Ocean Toolbox. The TRMM data sets represent the only comprehensive collection of surface rainfall (OPeNDAP) data accessible on the web today. This data collection, and future data sets as they come online, are more fully described in a THREDDS catalog. This catalog includes important metadata, as well as enabling further access to the data down to the granule level. The following data collection is accessible via OPeNDAP command clients:

  • NASA/GSFC Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) has provided precipitation data over the tropical and subtropical ocean from 40° N. to 40° S., since the launch of the TRMM spacecraft in 1997. This satellite carries the only precipitation radar currently in space. The TRMM orbit is circular, non sun-synchronous, with an inclination of 35° to the equator. The observatory for rainfall observations aboard the satellite consists of the following three primary instruments: Precipitation Radar (PR), TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI), and the Visible and Infrared Scanner (VIRS). The TRMM science team is still improving algorithms to translate the electromagnetic measurements obtained from the sensors into better estimates of instantaneous rain rate profiles. This time series data consists primarily of monthly gridded rainfall maps over the tropical ocean at spatial resolutions of 0.5°, 1.0°, and 5.0°. A Matlab GUI is currently being planned for this data set.