The JPL GRIP Portal - Serving Near Real-time Observation and Model Forecast for Hurricane Study

NASA conducted a field experiment, the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP), in the summer of 2010 to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. The DC-8 aircraft and the Global Hawk Unmanned Airborne System (UAS) were deployed loaded with instruments for measurements including lightning, temperature, 3D wind, precipitation, liquid and ice water contents, aerosol and cloud profiles. JPL created a web portal to collect, process and display both the satellite and the airborne observations in near real-time (NRT) and integrated then with the hurricane forecast models. The objective of the JPL GRIP portal is to provide environmental context and temporal continuity for the field campaign observations to help: (1) mission planning, (2) understanding of the physical processes, and (3) improving models through validation and data assimilation. Built on top of the JPL Tropical Cyclone Information System (TCIS) infrastructure, we developed a GRIP portal presenting a near-real time (NRT) basin-scale view of the atmospheric and surface conditions over the Atlantic, characterizing large-scale and storm-scale processes, as depicted by satellites and models. Using Google Earth embedded in the web browser and two independent calendars, we provide 3D visualization of a comprehensive collection of observations and model results as overlapping image overlays, wind vectors, curtain plots, or clickable tracks. We also provide Google Earth time animations of multiple data and model variables. In the portal, we offer more than two dozen NRT satellite products from a wide variety of instruments, model forecasts from four large-scale models (i.e., NOGAPS, GFS, ECMWF, and UKMET), and the best tracks and the forecast tracks from National Hurricane Center’s ATCF models. As they become available, we also display the airborne observations from HAMSR, APR2 and Dropsonde. It is a great challenge to set up a reliable infrastructure to collect data from many different sources and with different formats, to make the data available with minimal latency, and to satisfy users with different bandwidth requirements. In this paper, we will talk about the technologies behind the portal, the common problems we encountered during the field experiment and how we solved those problems.