NASA GHRC Collaboration between NASA MSFC and The University of Alabama in Huntsville
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        With HyDRO, you can search, discover, and filter GHRC's dataset holdings.

        HyDRO will also help you find information about browse imagery, access restrictions, and dataset guide documents.
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    • Hurricane Science
      • GHRC has worked with NASA's Hurricane Science Research Program (HSRP) since the 1990's. We are the archive and distribution center for data collected during HSRP field campaigns, as well as the recent Hurricane Science and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) Earth Venture mission. Field campaigns provide for intensive observation of specific phenomena using a variety of instruments on aircraft, satellites and surface networks.

        GHRC also hosts a database of Atlantic and Pacific tropical storm tracks derived from the storm data published by the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
    • HS3 (2012-14)
      • Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) is an Earth Ventures – Suborbital 1 mission aimed at better understanding the physical processes that control hurricane intensity change, addressing questions related to the roles of environmental conditions and internal storm structures to storm intensification.

        A variety of in-situ, satellite observations, airborne data, meteorological analyses, and simulation data were collected with missions over the Atlantic in August and September of three observation years (2012, 2013, 2014). These data are available at GHRC beginning in 2015.
    • GRIP (2010)
      • The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment was a NASA Earth science field experiment in 2010 that was conducted to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes.

        The GRIP deployment was 15 August – 30 September 2010 with bases in Ft. Lauderdale, FL for the DC-8, at Houston, TX for the WB-57, and at NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, CA for the Global Hawk.
    • TC4 (2007)
      • The NASA TC4 (Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling) mission investigated the structure and properties of the chemical, dynamic, and physical processes in atmosphere of the tropical Eastern Pacific.

        TC4 was based in San Jose, Costa Rica during July 2007.

        The Real Time Mission Monitor provided simultaneous aircraft status for three aircraft during the TC4 experiment. During TC4, the NASA ER-2, WB-57 and DC-8 aircraft flew missions at various times. The science flights were scheduled between 17 July and 8 August 2007.
    • NAMMA (2006)
      • The NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA) campaign was a field research investigation based in the Cape Verde Islands, 350 miles off the coast of Senegal in west Africa.

        Commenced in August 2006, NASA scientists employed surface observation networks and aircraft to characterize the evolution and structure of African Easterly Waves (AEWs) and Mesoscale Convective Systems over continental western Africa, and their associated impacts on regional water and energy budgets.
    • TCSP (2005)
      • The Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes (TCSP) mission was an Earth science field research investigation focused on the study of the dynamics and thermodynamics of precipitating cloud systems and tropical cyclones. TCSP was conducted during the period July 1-27, 2005 out of the Juan Santamaria Airfield in San Jose, Costa Rica.

        The TCSP field experiment flew 12 NASA ER-2 science flights, including missions to Hurricanes Dennis and Emily, Tropical Storm Gert and an eastern Pacific mesoscale complex that may possibly have further developed into Tropical Storm Eugene.
    • ACES (2002)
      • The Altus Cumulus Electrification Study (ACES) was aimed at better understanding the causes and effects of electrical storms.

        Based at the Naval Air Station Key West in Florida, researchers in August 2002 chased down thunderstorms using an uninhabited aerial vehicle, or "UAV", allowing them to achieve dual goals of gathering weather data safely and testing new aircraft technology. This marked the first time a UAV was used to conduct lightning research.
    • CAMEX-4 (2001)
      • The Convection And Moisture EXperiment (CAMEX) was a series of NASA-sponsored hurricane science field research investigations. The fourth field campaign in the CAMEX series (CAMEX-4) was held in 16 August - 24 September, 2001 and was based out of Jacksonville Naval Air Station, Florida.

        CAMEX-4 was focused on the study of tropical cyclone (hurricane) development, tracking, intensification, and landfalling impacts using NASA-funded aircraft and surface remote sensing instrumentation.
    • CAMEX-3 (1998)
      • The Convection And Moisture EXperiment (CAMEX) is a series of hurricane science field research investigations sponsored by NASA. The third field campaign in the CAMEX series (CAMEX-3) was based at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida from 6 August - 23 September, 1998.

        CAMEX-3 successfully studied Hurricanes Bonnie, Danielle, Earl and Georges, yielding data on hurricane structure, dynamics, and motion. CAMEX-3 collected data for research in tropical cyclone development, tracking, intensification, and landfalling impacts using NASA-funded aircraft and surface remote sensing instrumentation.
    • GPM Ground Validation
      • The NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) Ground Validation (GV) program includes the following field campaigns:

        a) LPVEx, Gulf of Finland in autumn 2010, to study rainfall in high latitude environments

        b) MC3E, cental Oklahoma spring and early summer 2011, to develop a complete characterization of convective cloud systems, precipitation and the environment

        c) GCPEx, Ontario, Canada winter of 2011-2012, direct and remove sensing observations, and coordinated model simulations of precipitating snow.

        d) IFloodS, Iowa, spring and early summer 2013, to study the relative roles of rainfall quantities and other factors in flood genesis.

        e) IPHEx, N. Carolina Appalachians/Piedmont region May-June 2014, for hydrologic validation over varied topography.

        f) OLYMPEx, Washington's Olympic Peninsula scheduled November 2015-February 2016, for hydrologic validation in extreme coastal and topographic gradients
    • OLYMPEX (Upcoming)
      • The OLYMPEX field campaign is scheduled to take place between November, 2015, and February, 2016, on the Olympic Peninsula in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

        This field campaign will provide ground-based validation support of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite program that is a joint effort between NASA and JAXA.

        As for all GPM-GV campaigns, the GHRC will provide a collaboration portal to help investigators exchange planning information and to support collection of real-time data as well as mission science, project and instrument status reports during the campaign.
    • IPHEx (2014)
      • The Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEx) was conducted in North Carolina during the months of April-June, 2014.

        IPHEx sought to characterize warm season orographic precipitation regimes, and the relationship between precipitation regimes and hydrologic processes in regions of complex terrain.
    • IFLOODs (2013)
      • The Iowa Flood Studies (IFloodS) experiment was conducted in the central to northeastern part of Iowa in Midwestern United States during the months of April-June, 2013.

        IFloodS' primary goal was to discern the relative roles of rainfall quantities such as rate and accumulation as compared to other factors (e.g. transport of water in the drainage network) in flood genesis.
    • GCPEX (2011-2012)
      • The GPM Cold-season Precipitation Experiment (GCPEx) occurred in Ontario, Canada during the winter season (Jan 15- Feb 26) of 2011-2012.

        GCPEx addressed shortcomings in GPM snowfall retrieval algorithm by collecting microphysical properties, associated remote sensing observations, and coordinated model simulations of precipitating snow. Collectively the GCPEx data set provides a high quality, physically-consistent and coherent data set suited to the development and testing of GPM snowfall retrieval algorithm physics.
    • MC3E (2011)
      • The Mid-latitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E) took place in central Oklahoma during the April–June 2011 period.

        The overarching goal was to provide the most complete characterization of convective cloud systems, precipitation, and the environment that has ever been obtained, providing constraints for model cumulus parameterizations and space-based rainfall retrieval algorithms over land that had never before been available.
    • LPVEx (2010)
      • The Light Precipitation Evaluation Experiment (LPVEx) took place in the Gulf of Finland in September and October, 2010 and collected microphysical properties, associated remote sensing observations, and coordinated model simulations of high latitude precipitation systems to drive the evaluation and development of precipitation algorithms for current and future satellite platforms.

        In doing so, LPVEx sought to address the general lack of dedicated ground-validation datasets from the ongoing development of new or improved algorithms for detecting and quantifying high latitude rainfall
  • Projects
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      • Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) is an Earth Ventures – Suborbital 1 mission aimed at better understanding the physical processes that control hurricane intensity change, addressing questions related to the roles of environmental conditions and internal storm structures to storm intensification.
    • DISCOVER - MEaSUREs
      • DISCOVER was funded by NASA’s MEaSUREs program to provide highly accurate, multi-decadal geophysical products derived from satellite microwave sensors.
    • LIS Mission
      • Lightning observations from the Lightning Imaging Sensors (LIS) aboard the NASA’s TRMM satellite and International Space Station, as well as airborne observations and ground validation data.
    • SANDS
      • The SANDS project addressed Gulf of Mexico Alliance priority issues by generating enhanced imagery from MODIS and Landsat data to identify suspended sediment resulting from tropical cyclones. These tropical cyclones have significantly altered normal coastal processes and characteristics in the Gulf region through sediment disturbance.
    • LANCE AMSR2
      • The Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE) system provides access to near real-time data (less than 3 hours from observation) from AIRS, AMSR2, MLS, MODIS, and OMI instruments. LANCE AMSR2 products are generated by the AMSR Science Investigator-led Processing System at the GHRC.
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DOCUMENTATION

Documentation

Guide Documents

Dataset PI Documents

Dataset Software

CAMEX-4 NASA Portable S-band Multiparameter Wx Research Radar

Table of Contents

Introduction
Instrument description
Data Products
File Naming Convention
Data Extraction
Contact Information

Introduction

The Convection And Moisture EXperiment (CAMEX) is a series of field research investigations sponsored by the Earth Science Enterprise of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The fourth field campaign in the CAMEX series (CAMEX-4) ran from 16 August to 25 September, 2001 and was based out of Jacksonville Naval Air Station, Florida. CAMEX-4 focused on the study of tropical cyclone (hurricane) development, tracking, intensification, and landfalling impacts using NASA-funded aircraft and surface remote sensing instrumentation.

The NASA Portable S-band Multiparameter Weather Research Radar was deployed to Boca Chica in the Florida Keys for CAMEX-4. Data were collected from 18 August through 4 September, and then was down due to a slip ring problem until the 21st of September. See the documentation at ftp://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/pub/doc/camex4/c4gnpol/ for dates, times and weather conditions seen at the radar site during each day of the experiment.

Instrument Description

The NASA Portable S-band Multiparameter Weather Research Radar was developed by a research team from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA. The flat panel radar antenna is fully portable and self-contained. The antenna is hexagonal in shape and 18-feet (5.5 meters) across. The fact that the antenna is flat allows for a system that is less susceptable to high winds than are traditional parabolic antennae. The entire system requires no special site preparation and can be set up on any flat terrain.

The NPOL radar is easily transportable, and consists of the flat faced antenna whose pedistal is mounted upon the conex (container express) boxes which house the display consoles, power supplies and air conditioning units as shown in the image to the right.

Data Products

There are two types of files associated with the NPOL radar data: radar data in universal format (uf) and browse images showing a PPI view at 0.5 degrees showing reflectivity. Data files are large, and are presented in 'gzipped' daily files. Typical daily file size is on the order of 0.5 to 1.5 Gigabytes.

One of the raw data files is available by request to GHRC User Services, or via our on line ordering system, HyDRO. Only one data file is available because of their size. They are too large for our server to accomodate them all. Technical support for these data is available as noted below.

Browse imagery is also available via HyDRO.

File Naming Convention

Data are 'tarred' into daily data files of the form:

c4gnpol_2001.ddd_daily.tar

where c4gnpol indicates that these data are from the CAMEX-4 experiment and the NPOL radar, 2001.ddd_daily indicates that these data are from the ddd of 2001, and tar indicates that these data are UNIX 'tarred' together. When 'untarred', this file will yield numerous files of the form:

NPOL_vol_01mmdd_tttt.uf.gz

where NPOL_vol represents the NPOL radar volume scan, 01mmdd_tttt is the year (2001), mm is the month, dd is the day, tttt is the volume scan time. uf indicates that these data are in universal format, and it is gz 'gzipped'.

When 'gunzipped' (UNIX) or extracted using WINZIP, this file will yield a data file in universal radar format. File naming convention for this unzipped/uncompressed data file is:

NPOL_vol_yymmdd_tttt.uf

Naming convention is similar to the zipped file. Again, this file is in universal radar format.

Browse imagery files are named as:

NPOL_010904_0001_swp0_dz.jpg

with nomenclature similar to that shown in the data files with the addition of swp0_dz indicating a 0.5 degree elevation sweep showing radar reflectivity. Imagery files may be viewed with any common viewer.

Data Extraction

Data are in Universal Format. For information about extracting imagery and tabular data, see here.

Contact Information

Address Scientific issues to:

Dr. John Gerlach
Branch Head
Observational Science Branch
laboratory for Hydrospheric Processes
NASA GSC/Wallops Flight Facility
Wallops Island, VA 23337-5019
phone: 757-824-1515
fax: 757-824-1036
gerlach@wff.nasa.gov

Technical issues should be addressed to:

Dr. Paul A. Kucera
Assistant Professor
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
P.O. Box 9006
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, ND 58202
phone: 701-777-6342
Fax: 701-777-5032
pkucera@aero.und.edu

To order these data or for further information, please contact:

Global Hydrology Resource Center
User Services
320 Sparkman Drive
Huntsville, AL 35805
Phone: 256-961-7932
E-mail: support-ghrc@earthdata.nasa.gov
Web: http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/

 

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