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TROPICS03 L2B Tropical Cyclone Intensity Estimate (TCIE) Algorithm V1.0

Metadata Updated: April 9, 2026

The "Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats" (TROPICS) mission has a goal of providing nearly all-weather observations of three-dimensional temperature and humidity, as well as cloud ice and precipitation horizontal structure, at high temporal resolution to conduct high-value science investigations of tropical cyclones. The mission comprises a constellation of five identical Space Vehicles (SVs) conforming to the 3U form factor and hosting a passive microwave spectrometer payload. Each SV hosts an identical high-performance spectrometer named the TROPICS Millimeter-wave Sounder (TMS) that will provide temperature profiles using seven channels near the 118.75-GHz oxygen absorption line, water vapor profiles using three channels near the 183-GHz water vapor absorption line, imagery in a single channel near 90 GHz for precipitation measurements (when combined with higher resolution water vapor channels), and a single channel near 205 GHz that is more sensitive to cloud-sized ice particles. The TROPICS Tropical Cyclone Intensity Estimate algorithm (TCIE), developed at the University of Wisconsin/CIMSS that uses native microwave brightness temperatures, estimates two primary TC variables: Minimum Sea Level Pressure (MSLP) and Maximum Sustained Winds (MSW). The TROPICS TCIE uses the brightness temperature perturbation of two temperature sounding channels (Ch. 6 and Ch. 7) and one channel from the moisture sounding channel (Ch. 1) along with ancillary information from the TC working best track file and the CIMSS ARCHER algorithm (eye size information) to estimate the TC intensity. This validated TCIE data release starts in June 2023 for the constellation CubeSats, and August 2021 for the TROPICS-01/Pathfinder.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 9, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 9, 2026
Publisher NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/GESDISC
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/Y7BWX0E9PDMY
Data Last Modified 2026-04-06
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 9f07a8e9-e41a-45cf-afeb-1c2b728d99c3
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Old Spatial "GEODETIC",{"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90}
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash ec1af7d3d53158a4e1d920270b90b45244965f3e337afe05570fe519cda08252
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2021-07-19/2026-03-30

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