# NASA Global Satellite and Model Data Products and Services for Tropical Meteorology and Climatology
## 5 Summary  
In this article, major NASA satellite missions and projects and their datasets for tropical meteorology and climatology were introduced. TRMM provides measurements from the first space-borne Ku-band precipitation radar, the PMW instrument, VIRS and LIS. The follow-up GPM Mission adds a new Ka-band in DPR in addition to the Ku-band for the improvement in light rain estimates. Several high frequency channels have been added in GMI for improving falling snow measurement. MERRA-2 provides a suite of meteorological variables that are important for studying weather events in the tropics, while climatological conditions can be derived from the \(\sim\)40 year collection of data. Future satellite missions have also been introduced. The to-be-launched TROPICS mission will improve sampling in the tropics with several high-frequency channels, as well as likely add more observations for research and monitoring activity. However, further research needs to be done to incorporate these channels that are currently not available in merged precipitation products such as IMERG. The ACCP mission that is in the planning stage will aim to improve our understanding of interactions among aerosols, clouds, convective activity and precipitation. Several important datasets have been introduced. Level-2 TRMM and GPM datasets, including precipitation, radar reflectivity, hydrometeor profiles and inter-calibrated PMW brightness temperatures, are suitable for case studies, algorithm development, and merged products from the constellation of domestic and international satellites. Level-3 TRMM and GPM merged precipitation datasets are more popular, such as TMPA and its successor, IMERG (Early, Late and Final Run) with improved spatial and temporal resolutions beginning from the TRMM era. Climatology and diurnal variation datasets can be derived from this \(\sim\)20 year data collection. The much improved IMERG provides new insights on the spatial and temporal distributions as well as the diurnal variation of precipitation not only in the tropics but also in the rest of the globe. The NOAA NCEP CPC merged IR brightness temperature is another important dataset for tropical meteorology. The merged IR can be used to study meteorological processes due to its high spatial and temporal resolutions. NASA MERRA-2 and LDAS datasets provide a model reanalysis of many meteorological variables (e.g., wind, temperature, pressure, humidity) that are essential for tropical meteorology. Other variables such as aerosols are also available for better understanding the interactions among aerosols, clouds and precipitation. Data and services at GES DISC have been presented. A newly designed Web landing page at GES DISC provides a one-stop shop for dataset search, subsetting, documents, news, alerts, data-in-action, data recipes, FAQs and more. All Web contents are searchable and filtering is provided to narrow down search results. Search history is available along with favorite dataset links. A user-friendly and powerful online tool, Giovanni, is introduced. There are over 1500 Level-3 variables that are currently available in Giovanni and more are being or to be added. Giovanni is a convenient tool for evaluating Level-3 remote sensing and model variables because no software and data download are required. With filtering and sorting capabilities, users can quickly locate variables of interest. There are 22 functions that can be used to analyze and visualize data. Graphic results can be fine-tuned and downloaded. Information and data in the data lineage are provided. Giovanni can also be used to verify data downloaded from the archive to make sure that the read software performs as expected. Another user-friendly, freely available tool, NASA GISS Panoply, was introduced. Panoply can be used to visualize many Level-2 and 3 datasets. Built-in features allow modifying the graphic result including projection, color bar, etc. Panoply provides remote access to data repositories such as HTTPS, OPeNDAP, GDS, etc. Animation is also available.