NPP/NPOESS Data Analysis and Visualization: Developing Tools to Work with Multi and Hyperspectral Data

The NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission and the operational NPOESS program that follows will carry advanced instrumentation and systems that will collect and distribute land, ocean, and atmosphere data. The VIIRS, CrIS and ATMS imager and sounder instruments provide a transition from the MODIS, AIRS and AMSU instruments on the NASA EOS Aqua and Terra satellites. These systems provide atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, humidity sounding, cloud and aerosol properties, and other environmental products. The University of Wisconsin's Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) has been at the forefront in developing data analysis and visualization tools for environmental satellites and other geophysical data. The fifth generation of the Man-computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS-V) is a java-based, open- source, freely available system for multispectral and hyperspectral researchers and algorithm developers that will provide powerful new data manipulation and visualization tools to work in the NPP/NPOESS environment, while continuing to support current McIDAS users. The McIDAS-V software tools provide expanded capability and performance to support innovative techniques for developing and evaluating algorithms, visualizing data and products, and validating results. This presentation will demonstrate the capabilities of McIDAS-V to analyze and display high spatial and spectral resolution data using EOS MODIS and AIRS, and METOP IASI data as surrogates for the NPP VIIRS and CrIS. The presentation will also demonstrate easy to use capabilities for multi-channel product development. The McIDAS-V data analysis and visualization system will support both researchers and operational users of the advanced measurement systems on NPP/NPOESS.