The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a grating spectrometer (R = 1200) aboard the second Earth Observing System (EOS) polar-orbiting platform, EOS Aqua. In combination with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), AIRS constitutes an innovative atmospheric sounding group of visible, infrared, and microwave sensors. The Support Product includes higher vertical resolution profiles of the quantities found in the Standard Product plus intermediate output (e.g., microwave-only retrieval), research products such as the abundance of trace gases, and detailed quality assessment information. The Support Product profiles contain 100 pressure levels between 1100 and .016 mb; this higher resolution simplifies the generation of radiances using forward models, though the vertical information content is no greater than in the Standard Product profiles. The horizontal resolution is 50 km. The intended users of the Support Product are researchers interested in generating forward radiance, or in examining research products, and the AIRS algorithm development team. The Support Product is generated at all locations as Standard Products. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data, 30 footprints cross track by 45 lines along track. There are 240 granules per day, with an orbit repeat cycle of approximately 16 day.

These data have been collected from an Arctic desert site (latitude 78o57'29N, longitude 12o27'42E), Broeggerhalvoya in western Spitsbergen, 10 km NW from Ny Alesund, 45 m above sea level, 2 km from the shore. This is a low relief tip of a bedrock peninsula covered with several meters of glacial drift and reworked raised beach ridges. The measurements are obtained in the site of well developed patterned ground, sorted polygons, where the influence of plants, including thermal insulation and transpiration, is negligible. The 1985-1986 period was average. Mean annual air temperature was -6.6 C, 0.4 C colder than the long-term (1975-1990) mean, but well within the mean variability. Mean winter air temperature is relatively warm (mean of coldest month, February, is -14.6 C). Annual precipitation was 17 % greater than the ong-term mean (372 mm); however, the number of rain-on-snow events was less (3) than average (5.5). Overall, the reference period is close to long-term averages.

A program of automated soil temperature recordings was initiated in the summer of 1984, at a patterned ground field site Thermistors were placed approximately 0.1 m apart in an epoxy-filled PVC rod (18 mm outside diameter), buried in the center of a fine-grained domain of a sorted circle, down to 1.14 m below the ground surface. The data presented here covers 7/1/85-7/1/86, once a day (6 am), at two levels (0.0 m, 1.145 m below surface). The resolution of the thermistors is 0.004 C, and the accuracy is estimated to be 0.02 C near 0 C. Missing data accounts for less than 7 %. The gaps are filled with simple average of the beginning and end of the gap values. For a detailed description of the field site and data analysis see Putkonen (1997) and Hallet and Prestrud (1986). These data are presented on the CAPS Version 1.0 CD-ROM, June 1998.

Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) data products are currently available from 1998 to the present. Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission data products are currently available from March 2014 to the present. TRMM and GPM are joint missions between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) designed to monitor and study global precipitation. Here we outline the types of products currently available for TRMM and GPM and the various ways to query, view and download these precipitation products.

Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) data products are currently available from 1998 to the present. Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission data products are currently available from March 2014 to the present. TRMM and GPM are joint missions between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) designed to monitor and study global precipitation. Here we outline the types of products currently available for TRMM and GPM and the various ways to query, view and download these precipitation products.

Earth Science data access made simple. Through water and energy cycle research we can improve hurricane prediction, quantify tropical rainfall and eventually begin to balance the water budget at global and regional scales.

Research at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) emphasizes a broad study of global change, which is an interdisciplinary initiative addressing natural and man-made changes in our environment that occur on various time scales from one-time forcings such as volcanic explosions, to seasonal and annual effects such as El Nino, and on up to the millennia of ice ages and that affect the habitability of our planet.

The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) is the home (archive) of Precipitation, Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics, and information, as well as data and information from other related disciplines.