About the GHRC

Mission

The mission of the Global Hydrometeorology Resource Center (GHRC) DAAC is to provide a comprehensive active archive of both data and knowledge augmentation services with a focus on hazardous weather, its governing dynamical and physical processes, and associated applications. Within this broad mandate, GHRC will focus on lightning, tropical cyclones and storm-induced hazards through integrated collections of satellite, airborne, and in-situ data sets.

 

Organization

The GHRC is a partnership between NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), and is located at the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) on the UAH campus.  The NSSTC houses the NASA MSFC Earth Science Office, the local office of National Weather Service, UAH professors, researchers and students, and other partners.

The GHRC was initially established as the Marshall Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) in 1991 at the beginning of NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) program.  Today, Dr. Manil Maskey, an Earth science informatics researcher at MSFC, serves as GHRC DAAC Manager.  All other GHRC staff are employed by UAH and matrixed from within the Information Technology and Systems Center (ITSC), under direction of Dr. Sara Graves.

 

Current Data Holdings  

Key Data Holdings of the GHRC DAAC are described below. All data are accessible from the GHRC Search Portal.

Data Collection Description
Lightning Observations

 

GHRC hosts a wide variety of lightning datasets. These can be stand-alone datasets or in conjunction with field campaigns. Lightning observations come from multiple platforms. These include:

Ground-based Sensors

  • Kennedy Space Center Lightning Detection and Ranging (KSC LDAR)
  •  Kennedy Space Center Field Mills (KSC FM)
  • North Alabama Lightning Mapping Array (NALMA)

Airborne-based Sensors

  • Lightning Instrument Package (LIP)

Satellite-based Sensors

  • Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Optical Linescan System (DMSP OLS)
  • Optical Transient Detector on Orbview-1 (OTD)
  • Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Lightning Imaging Sensor (TRRM LIS)
  • TRMM LIS Very High Resolution Climatology data (TRMM LIS VHR)
  • International Space Station Lightning Imaging Sensor (ISS LIS)
  • Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM – coming in 2022)
 
DISCOVER MEaSUREs

 

Distributed Information Services for Climate and Ocean Products and Visualizations for Earth Research (DISCOVER) Making Earth Science Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) provides atmospheric and ocean products derived from satellite microwave radiometer measurements and delivered as a package of inter-related geophysical parameters, including:

  • Sea surface wind speeds
  • Atmospheric water vapor
  • Cloud liquid water
  • Rain rates

 

Hurricane Science and
Field Campaigns

 

Airborne and ground-based observations of tropical cyclones and cyclogenesis collected during a series of campaigns from 1998 to the present. These campaigns include:

  • Convection and Moisture Experiment 3 and 4 (CAMEX-3, CAMEX-4)
  • Altus Cumulus Electrification Study (ACES)
  • Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes (TCSP)
  • NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA)
  • Tropical Composition, Cloud, and Climate Coupling (TC4)
  • Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP)
  • Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3)
  • East Pacific Origins and Characteristics of Hurricanes (EPOCH)
 
GPM Ground Validation
Field Campaigns

 

Precipitation datasets from ground and airborne instruments supporting physical validation of satellite-based precipitation retrieval algorithms, from targeted observations in different precipitation regimes (2010-2016). These campaigns include:

  • GHRC and the NASA GPM Ground Validation program
  • GPM Ground Validation Canadian CloudSat / CALIPSO Validation Project (C3VP)
  • Light Precipitation Evaluation Experiment (LPVEx)
  • Mid-latitude Continental Convective Clouds Experiment (MC3E)
  • GPM Cold Season Precipitation experiment (GCPEx)
  • Iowa Flood Studies Field Experiment (IFloodS)
  • Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEx)
  • Olympic Mountains Ground Validation Experiment (OLYMPEX)
  • International Collaborative Experiment for PyeongChange Olympic and Paralympics (ICE-POP)
     
Convective Processes Experiments

 

This is a series of three field campaigns that took place between 2017 and 2022. The original Convective Processes Experiment (CPEX - 2017) focused on understanding cloud dynamics, downdrafts, cold pools, and thermodynamics during initiation growth and dissipation. The 2021 follow-on CPEX-Aerosols and Winds served as calibration and validation for the European Space Agency’s Atmospheric Dynamics Mission-Aeolus. It also studied microphysics related to the Saharan Air Layer, African easterly waves and jets, the marine atmospheric boundary layer, and tropical convection. The 2022 CPEX-Cabo Verde will continue to study tropical convection and associated processes affecting tropical North Atlantic dynamics.

 

 

GHRC Cloud Services

Learn about GHRC's Cloud Services on our page at https://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/home/content/ghrc_cloud_services

 

GHRC Search Portal

GHRC is in the process of moving its data holdings to the cloud. The GHRC Search Portal offers access to cloud-based datasets as well as resources to help guide data users in discovering, accessing, and utilizing cloud data. The GHRC Search Portal can be found at https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/portal/ghrc/search. For questions, please see GHRC Search Portal Help.

 

Earthdata CMR

The Earthdata Common Metadata Repository (CMR) is a high-performance, high-quality, continuously evolving metadata system that catalogs Earth Science data and associated service metadata records. These metadata records are registered, modified, discovered, and accessed through programmatic interfaces leveraging standard protocols and APIs. Use CMR to search and in helping to narrow down the data you need, over the spatial and temporal parameters desired, by platform, provider, or collection ID, and much more. For details check out the CMR API documentation.

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