Initial Publication Date: May 18, 2012

Week 4: Using Satellite Data to Study the Ocean

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Intro to Giovanni
Resources
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Intro to Giovanni

Sample Giovanni Outputs
Graphic showing some of the data sources available in NASA's Giovanni web portal Image provided by Dr. Steven A. Lloyd, Chief Scientist, NASA Goddard Earth Sciences.
Giovanni is a web-based application developed by the NASA Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Services Center. This powerful tool provides a simple way to visualize, analyze and access vast amounts of satellite-based Earth science data without having to download anything.

Giovanni's Web interface allows both novice users and expert researchers to explore Earth science data for virtually any location in the world. With the map tool, you can select an area of interest and then generate plots or ASCII files outputs for area-average, time-series, and latitude or longitude vs. time diagrams. You can also generate animations to study changes over time.

Giovanni has multiple interfaces, called instances. Instances are divided into four broad categories based on the type of Earth science data they display:
  • Atmospheric Instances: aerosol optical thickness, clouds, water vapor, ozone, trace gas profiles, reflectivity data
  • Environmental Instances: air quality, precipitation, multi-satellite atmospheric & land parameter data
  • Ocean Instances: ocean color, NASA Ocean Biogeochemical Model (NOBM) assimilated products (chlorophyll and phytoplankton functional groups) data
  • Hydrology Instances: rainfall, aerosols, clouds, water vapor, historical analyses of the hydrological cycle, land surface state data

This week, you will use an ocean color instance to perform steps similar to those used by Dr. James Acker (a contract scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center) to investigate water quality issues in Chesapeake Bay.

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Resources

  • Click here for a full list of Giovanni's capabilities.
  • Search The Giovanni-NEO Instructional Cookbook for step-by-step instructions showing how to use Giovanni and NEO to look at Earth's various regions and the atmospheric, oceanic, and land surface processes which affect them.
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