OVERVIEW

The Goddard Earth Science (GES) Data and Information Service Center (DISC) is making some of its data available in Google Earth to facilitate scientific research. Our NASA imagery includes two dimensional (2D) flat data and three dimensional (3D) vertical data. Here, an innovative solution integrates the vertical data from the A-Train constellation satellites CloudSat, CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation), and Aqua (mainly MODIS and AIRS products) into Google Earth to vividly expose cloud, aerosol, and H2O characteristics and atmospheric temperature profile in the form of curtain along the satellite orbit.

LATEST NEWS

02.08.2008 - A scale is added on orbit curtain for user figuring out the real height of the cloud
Please refer to: 3D Virtualization of Typhoon Prapiroon I.

02.05.2008 - A paper was submitted to Journal of Virtual Explorer
A paper named "Augmenting the Research Value of Geospatial Data using Google Earth" was submitted to the Journal of Virtual Explorer.

01.15.2008 - KMZ files for vertical data orbit curtain was posted in Google Earth Community
A series of KMZ files about Typhoon Prapiroon represented by CloudSat, TRMM and QuikSCAT data were posted in Google Earth Community. Please see 3D Virtualization of Typhoon Prapiroon I, II, and III.

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EXAMPLES

The orbit time: 2007-02-23 12:00:00

The corresponding KMZ files:

CloudSat	CALIPSO	MODIS/Aqua	TRMM	AIRS/Aqua
2007-03-15 01:00 Cloud Refectivity	2007-02-23 12:00 Cloud-Aerosol / Ice Water	2007-02-23 12:00 Atmospheric Temperature Profile	2004-03-01 Monthly .25°x.25° Surface Rainrate	2005-12-01 Daily Total O3

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