NASA Water Vapor Project (NVAP) - Making Earth Science Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs)

Improvement of the NVAP Global Water Vapor Data Set for Climate, Hydrological and Weather Studies

Principal Investigator: Thomas Vonder Haar, Science and Technology Corp.

The NASA MEaSUREs program began in 2008 and has the goal of creating stable, community accepted Earth System Data Records (ESDRs) for a variety of geophysical time series. A reanalysis and extension of the NASA Water Vapor Project (NVAP), called NVAP-M was performed by Science and Technology Corporation, METSAT Division as part of this program. NVAP-M spans 1988-2009. NVAP-M is further described in Vonder Haar, T. H., J. L. Bytheway and J. M. Forsythe, 2012: "Weather and climate analyses using improved global water vapor observations." Geophys. Res. Lett.39, L16802, doi:10.1029/2012GL052094

The heritage NASA Water Vapor Project (NVAP) total column (integrated) water vapor data sets comprised a combination of radiosonde observations, Television and Infrared Operational Satellite (TIROS) Operational Vertical Sounders (TOVS), and Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) data sets. These data sets spanned 14 years (1988 - 2001) and contained total and layered global water vapor data. The spatial coverage was global for all data sets. NVAP-M completely supercedes the heritage NVAP data set.

Disciplines:   Clouds MEaSUREs
Collection Disciplines Spatial Temporal
NVAP_CLIMATE_Layered-Precipitable-Water_1
NASA Water Vapor Project MEaSUREs (NVAP-M) CLIMATE Layered Precipitable Water
Field Campaigns,  MEaSUREs Spatial Coverage:
(S: -90, N: 90), (W: -179.9, E: 180)
Longitude Resolution:
1 degree
Latitude Resolution:
1 degree
Temporal Coverage:
1988-01-01 - 2009-12-01
Temporal Resolution:
Daily
NVAP_CLIMATE_Total-Precipitable-Water_1
NASA Water Vapor Project MEaSUREs (NVAP-M) CLIMATE Total Precipitable Water
Field Campaigns,  MEaSUREs Spatial Coverage:
(S: -90, N: 90), (W: -179.9, E: 180)
Longitude Resolution:
1 degree
Latitude Resolution:
1 degree
Temporal Coverage:
1988-01-01 - 2009-12-01
Temporal Resolution:
Daily
NVAP_OCEAN_Total-Precipitable-Water_1
NASA Water Vapor Project MEaSUREs (NVAP-M) OCEAN Total Precipitable Water
MEaSUREs Spatial Coverage:
(S: -90, N: 90), (W: -179.9, E: 180)
Longitude Resolution:
1 degree
Latitude Resolution:
1 degree
Temporal Coverage:
1988-01-01 - 2009-12-01
Temporal Resolution:
Daily
NVAP_WEATHER_Layered-Precipitable-Water_1
NASA Water Vapor Project MEaSUREs (NVAP-M) WEATHER Layered Precipitable Water
Field Campaigns,  MEaSUREs Spatial Coverage:
(S: -90, N: 90), (W: -179.9, E: 180)
Temporal Coverage:
1988-01-01 - 2009-12-01
Temporal Resolution:
6-Hourly
NVAP_WEATHER_Total-Precipitable-Water_1
NASA Water Vapor Project MEaSUREs (NVAP-M) NVAP WEATHER Total Precipitable Water
Field Campaigns,  MEaSUREs Spatial Coverage:
(S: -90, N: 90), (W: -179.9, E: 180)
Temporal Coverage:
1988-01-01 - 2009-12-01
Temporal Resolution:
6-Hourly

NVAP-M Mission Publications

Misra, Vasubandhu; Bhardwaj, Amit (2022). The impact of air–sea coupling on the simulation of the hydroclimatic change over Peninsular Florida.


Misra, Vasubandhu; Bhardwaj, Amit (2019). Estimating the Thermodynamic and Dynamic Contributions to Hydroclimatic Change over Peninsular Florida.


Schröder, Marc; Lockhoff, Maarit; Fell, Frank; Forsythe, John; Trent, Tim; Bennartz, Ralf; Borbas, Eva; Bosilovich, Michael G.; Castelli, Elisa; Hersbach, Hans; Kachi, Misako; Kobayashi, Shinya; Kursinski, E. Robert; Loyola, Diego; Mears, Carl; Preusker, Rene; Rossow, William B.; Saha, Suranjana (2018). The GEWEX Water Vapor Assessment archive of water vapour products from satellite observations and reanalyses.