Development of a regional environmental system for the support of mission to planet earth

Given the emergence of numerous Earth orbiting probes, regional data centers that introduce advanced technologies in an evolutionary fashion are quickly becoming necessary to control burgeoning development costs, to minimize operations costs, and to test riskier technologies. In the past and present, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) has provided invaluable feedback to NASA about the standard operations for covering four of the six major tropical cyclone basins, (North and South Indian Oceans, and the western North Pacific and Southwest Pacific Oceans). Since the termination of U.S. Air Force (USAF) weather reconnaissance flights in 1987, position fixes, intensity determination and intensity forecasts of tropical cyclones and other severe storms are based on heavy utilization of satellite derived image products. During 1988 a total of 2,044 satellite fixes were made on western North Pacific tropical cyclones, 117 fixes on tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean and 1,144 for those in the southern hemisphere (Plante and McMorrow 1988). NASA and the U.S. Air Force have developed a multi-satellite receiving and analysis system to support the JTWC. The system is capable of tracking and analyzing multiple storms simultaneously, requesting and scheduling of resources from five other remote facilities and providing information on storm positions and intensities. This interactive meteorological data display and image analysis system (MIDDAS) has been developed by operational forecasters; thus, the system incorporates elements designed to reduce manpower and provide analysis tools which integrate satellite observations from five satellites (GMS-4, GMS-5, NOAA-10, NOAA-12, NOAA-14, DMSP-44, DMSP-46) together with in situ measurements from the Global Telecommunications System (GTS). The system description, data analysis capabilities, and the required technologies for the next development stage are presented.