Improvement of Visualization of NASA A-Train Data using Google Earth

Virtual Globes, such as NASA World Wind, Google Earth, Microsoft Virtual Earth, ESRI ArcGIS Explorer, is increasingly becoming a new virtual three-dimensional platform for scientific research. The NASA Goddard Earth Science (GES) Data and Information Service Center (DISC) has done work with Google Earth, such as: a) visualizing two-, three- and four-dimensional Earth science data; b) visualizing and synergizing analyzed results derived from GES DISC’s online analysis system Giovanni (e.g. A-Train Instance system); and c) visualizing results derived from other standard web services (e.g. OGC Web Map Service). Most of data are from A-Train satellite constellation. We improved our current online analysis system to provide combined KMZ for visualizing both vertical curtains and surface strips for the same temporal and spatial range obtained from the A-Train Giovanni. After selecting specific temporal/spatial range, KMZ files with vertical information for temperature, water vapor, clouds, aerosols, etc., are packaged together with horizontal layers of cloud pressure, cloud top temperature, cloud cover, rain rate, etc. for downloading and visualizing in Google Earth. Also, the performance of rendering vertical curtain of A-Train data in Google Earth was greatly improved.