NCCS Hyperwall Show: GEOS-5 Modeled Clouds at 5-km Resolution (Flat Map)

Slices of Earth observational and modeling data || This visualization reveals that the Earth system, like the human body, comprises diverse components that interact in complex ways. Heat absorbed by the ocean is transported by ocean currents—shown here as ECCO2 model output. This energy is constantly released into Earth’s atmosphere. Heat and moisture from the ocean and land influence Earth’s weather patterns—represented here as 500 mb wind speeds from GEOS-5. Moisture in the atmosphere—represented as precipitable water from the GEOS-5 model—forms clouds and precipitation—shown here using the GPM IMERG product. Precipitation significantly impacts water availability, which influences soil moisture and ocean salinity—shown here as data from SMAP. Lastly, data from multiple satellites show the density of plant growth on land and chlorophyll concentrations in the ocean. While scientists learn a great deal from studying each of these components individually, improved observational and computational capabilities increasingly allow them to study the interactions between these interrelated geophysical and biological parameters, leading to unprecedented insight into how the Earth system works—and how it might change in the future.List of visualizations used:Slice 1: Sea Surface Currents Temperature (ECCO2 model)Slice 2: Winds (GEOS-5 model)Slice 3: Precipitable Water (GEOS-5 model)Slice 4: Clouds (GEOS-5 model)Slice 5: Precipitation (IMERG data)Slice 6: Soil Moisture (SMAP data)Slice 7: Biosphere (Multiple satellite datasets)Slice 8: Blue Marble (MODIS data)

This is an abridged 2-D version of A Global Tour of Precipitation in 4K that is designed for flat screens. Complete transcript available.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Music credits: Tides by Ben Niblett and Jon Cotton, Developing Over Time by Ben Niblett and Jon Cotton. Both tracks are from the KillerTracks catalog. || Precipitation (falling rain and snow) is our fresh water reservoir in the sky and is fundamental to life on Earth. A Global Tour of Precipitation from NASA shows how rain and snowfall moves around the world from the vantage of space using measurements from the Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory, or GPM. This is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and offers the most detailed and worldwide view of rain and snowfall ever created.This narrated movie is created for Science On a Sphere, a platform designed by NOAA that displays movies on a spherical screen. Audiences can view the movie from any side of the sphere and can see any part of Earth. During this show viewers will be guided through a variety of precipitation patterns and display features such as the persistent band of the heaviest rainfall around the equator and tight swirls of tropical storms in the Northern Hemisphere. At subtropical latitudes in both hemispheres there are persistent dry areas and this is where most of the major deserts reside. Sea surface temperature and winds are also shown to highlight the interconnectedness of the Earth system. The movie concludes with near real-time global precipitation data from GPM, which is provided to Science On a Sphere roughly six hours after the observation.To download this movie formatted for a spherical screen, visit NOAA s IMERG preciptation data. Note, the time period within each dataset does not match.