The understanding of the Earth as an intricately coupled system and the variables that influence climate changes has been the goal of the Mission To Planet Earth NASA Strategic Enterprise.
Water is the most important variable in understanding atmospheric processes.
Currently the SAGE II has been providing and after 1998, SAGE II missions will provide large amounts of global atmospheric water vapor mixing ratio data. The proposed work is to develop visualization tools to fully exlpoit the capabilities of the SAGE III water vapor data potentially in real-time. The visualization procedures could be easily modified to study data fom other NASA satellites instruments. The proposed work will provide powerful tools to fully exploit the SAGE III capabilities while providing understanding of water vapor dynamics during years of unusual atmospheric activity.