Abstract:
Lack of fundamental knowledge and practical capabilities in tropical convection leaves the global climate community disadvantaged in modeling and predicting prominent phenomena of the tropical atmosphere, such as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), El Niño-Southern Oscillation events (ENSO), monsoons and their active/break periods, the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), subtropical stratus
... decks, near-surface ocean properties, tropical cyclones, and even the diurnal cycle. The Year of Tropical Convection (YOTC), a joint activity of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and World Weather Research Programme (WWRP)/THORPEX, is a 2-year period (May 2008 – April 2010) of coordinated observing, modeling, and forecasting with a focus on organized tropical convection, its prediction, and predictability.
The goal of the Goddard Giovanni for YOTC project at the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) and Data Information Services Center is to facilitate NASA satellite data usage by providing a way the YOTC community can easily read, subset, visualize, access, and harmonize data from multiple space-borne sensors.
Two beta Giovanni prototypes have been released:
1) YOTC-GS L3 is a web-based graphics and analysis tool to explore Level 3 data products (MODIS Terra, Aqua AIRS, AMSR-E, TRMM, etc.).
YOTC-GS L3 contains daily mosaics of ~88 parameters ranging from cloud top temperature to aerosol optical depth, providing environmental conditions of both global and regional scales in 2 and 3 dimensions. 7 functions are available for data analysis and visualization. Users can download analysis results, original data or subsets for further analysis as well.
2) YOTC-GS L2 is a web-based graphics and analysis tool to explore Level 2 data products (TRMM, AIRS, Merged IR, QuikSCAT, AMSR-E, etc.).
YOTC-GS L2 provides an easy access to Level-2 satellite orbital data (also known as swath data). Currently there are ~14 parameters which can be viewed as atmospheric profiles, and 60 parameters in satellite swath format. With YOTC-GS L2, users can plot a profile or generate a swath map for an event displayed in the map selection area.
[Summary provided by GES DISC.] 
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