National Aeronautics and Space Administration

MERRA: MODERN-ERA RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS FOR RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS

MERRA NEWS ARCHIVE

2010

USCLIVAR holds a workshop on renalyses and IESA

NOAA, NASA, NSF, and U.S. CLIVAR sponsored "Evaluation of Reanalyses - Developing an Integrated Earth System Analysis (IESA) Capability" held in Baltimore, Maryland, USA on November 1-3, 2010.

One of the main objectives of this workshop was to begin understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the latest group of reanalysis and develop the needs for the next generation of reanalyses. As such, research and validation of MERRA data was a valuable contribution to the workshop.

See the Workshop Announcement for more details.

GEO News Article on Continuing Reanalyses

The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) newsletter, Issue no. 8 features an article entitled, "Implementing GEOSS - Coordination and funding key to improved data reanalysis".

2009

Hurricane Katrina Visualization

[ CLICK IMAGE BELOW TO ANIMATE ]   »   [ VIEW LARGE ANIMATION ]   »   [ STOP ANIMATION ]

This visualization shows the development and landfall of Katrina as viewed from MERRA data. See the MERRA blog for a discussion and link to this animation and validating radar data.
» Read More at the MERRA Blog

2008

*NEW* MERRA File Specification Available

The draft MERRA File Specification Document is available and open for comment. This describes the output variables and files that will be available from the MERRA reanalysis. Please send comments to Max.Suarez@nasa.gov and Michael.Bosilovich@nasa.gov. Download the DRAFT document [2008 Sep.] (PDF)

MERRA Article in Earthzine

Dr. Michael Bosilovich's article entitled "NASA's Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications: Integrating Earth Observations" has been published in Earthzine, an on-line magazine about Earth Science, produced by the IEEE Committee on Earth Observation (ICEO).

Presidents Day 1979 Snowstorm animation

[ CLICK IMAGE BELOW TO ANIMATE ]   ·   [ VIEW LARGE ANIMATION ]   ·   [ STOP ANIMATION ]

This visualization shows the development of the severe President's Day 1979 snow storm. The color contours are the sea level pressure (hPa), the color wind barbs are the surface layer winds (m/s values are colored according to the right side color bar), and total cloud fraction is shaded from black (no cloud) to white (complete cloud cover). This is generated from MERRA data currently available at the GES DISC.

2007

MERRA User Review Meeting, November 7, 2007

The group of external reanalyses users charged with reviewing the GMAO's strategy for MERRA met on November 7th to discuss the results of recent validation experiments. The External User Group, chaired by Phil Arkin, gave enthusiastic support for GMAO's system and requested that it proceed with MERRA production. They noted that while the system is not perfect, as no existing system is, MERRA is better than any reanalysis to date and they expect that it will be the product of choice for the scientific community for some time. The group requested that the GMAO continue to improve the system and to make reanalysis an ongoing activity of GMAO.  Read a Summary of November 7, 2007 Meeting.

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