Applications

Thursday, September 13, 2018

Overview

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission has several cross-cutting application areas which contribute to and enhance our understanding of weather forecasting, disasters, ecology, health, water and agriculture and energy. Using advanced space-borne instruments, GPM measures light rain to heavy rain and falling snow, producing a near-global view of precipitation every 30 minutes. Through improved measurements of rain and snow, precipitation data from the GPM mission is used by a diverse range of applications and user communities at local to global scales to inform decision making and policy that directly benefits society.

Sections

What are Applications?

“Applications” refers to the use of mission data products in decision-making activities for societal benefit. Mission Applications take a satellite's data products and expands them into areas where they can help inform policy or decisions.

Learn more about Applied Sciences at NASA

Who's Using GPM Data?

Learn about the different people and organizations that are using GPM and other NASA Earth data to help improve life around the world.

View Articles

2022 GPM Mentorship Program

GPM Data for Decision Making

Get Involved

Are you using GPM satellite precipitation data in your work, or would you like to? Share your story with our team, or ask us any questions you may have using our contact form.

We also encourage you to get involved in GPM applications by attending an applications event or accessing the free and publicly available data in the data section of this site.

GPM Applications Team

Dalia Kirschbaum (NASA GSFC), GPM Mission Associate Deputy Project Scientist for Applications
Andrea Portier (NASA GSFC / SSAI), GPM Applications and Outreach Coordinator
Dorian Janney (NASA GSFC / ADNET), GPM Outreach Specialist
Jacob Reed (NASA GSFC / Telophase), GPM Web Developer

GPM Applications Materials

GPM Applications Posters (.zip / .pdf)
GPM Applications & Data Access One Pagers (.pdf)
Highlights

GPM Training Resources

Applications Featured Resources

GPM Flies Over Tropical Cyclone Florence

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Download in High Resolution from the NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio GPM passed over Tropical Storm Florence on September 7, 2018. As the camera moves in on the storm, DPR's volumetric view of the storm is revealed. A slicing plane moves across the volume to display precipitation rates throughout the storm. Shades of green to red represent liquid precipitation. Frozen precipitation is shown in cyan and purple. NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core observatory satellite flew over Tropical Storm Florence on September 7, 2018. At that time, the storm was...

NASA Rainfall Data and Global Fire Weather

Thursday, June 28, 2018

The Global Fire WEather Database (GFWED) integrates different weather factors influencing the likelihood of a vegetation fire starting and spreading. It is based on the Fire Weather Index (FWI) System, which tracks the dryness of three general fuel classes, and the potential behavior of a fire if it were to start. Each day, FWI values are calculated from global weather data, including satellite rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission.

Using Precipitation Data to Track Cholera

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Diarrheal diseases such as cholera continue to be a public health threat. Prediction of an outbreak of diarrheal disease, specifically cholera, following a natural disaster remains a challenge, especially in regions lacking basic safe civil infrastructure such as water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). The underlying mechanism of a cholera outbreak is associated with disruption in the human access to safe WASH infrastructure that results in the population using unsafe water containing pathogenic vibrios. Presence and abundance of Vibrio cholerae, the causative agent of cholera, are related to modalities of the environment and regional weather as well as the climate systems.

Help NASA Create the Largest Landslide Database

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Landslides cause thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in property damage each year. Surprisingly, very few centralized global landslide databases exist, especially those that are publicly available. Now NASA scientists are working to fill the gap—and they want your help collecting information.

Modeling Landslide Threats in Near Realtime

Thursday, March 22, 2018

For the first time, scientists can look at landslide threats anywhere around the world in near real-time, thanks to satellite data and a new model developed by NASA. The model, developed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, estimates potential landslide activity triggered by rainfall. Rainfall is the most widespread trigger of landslides around the world. If conditions beneath Earth's surface are already unstable, heavy rains act as the last straw that causes mud, rocks or debris — or all combined — to move rapidly down mountains and hillsides. A new model has been...

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Powerful Coastal Storm Brings Snow, Extreme Cold, Wind and Blizzard Conditions to the East Coast View an interactive 3D visualization of GPM data from Winter Storm Grayson in STORM Event Viewer Mobile version Cold Artic air has been keeping the vast majority of the country east of the Rockies in the deep freeze over the past week. Now a powerful coastal storm is working its way up the East Coast bringing a mixture of snow, freezing rain, high winds and blizzard conditions from as far south as Florida all the way up into Maine with blizzard warnings in effect along the coast from North Carolina...

Friday, October 13, 2017

NASA's GPM satellite helped track Nate's progress through the Gulf of Mexico and also captured Nate's landfall on the north central Gulf Coast. This animation shows instantaneous rainrate estimates from NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM or IMERG product over North America and the surrounding waters beginning on Thursday October 5th when Nate first became a tropical storm near the northeast coast of Nicaragua in the western Caribbean until its eventual landfall on the northern Gulf Coast on Sunday October 8th.

Thursday, October 5, 2017

In 2017, we have seen four Atlantic storms rapidly intensify with three of those storms - Hurricane Harvey, Irma and Maria - making landfall. When hurricanes intensify a large amount in a short period, scientists call this process rapid intensification. This is the hardest aspect of a storm to forecast and it can be most critical to people's lives. While any hurricane can threaten lives and cause damage with storm surges, floods, and extreme winds, a rapidly intensifying hurricane can greatly increase these risks while giving populations limited time to prepare and evacuate.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

GPM passed over both Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Jose on September 18th, 2017. As the camera moves in on the Maria, DPR's volumetric view of the storm is revealed. A slicing plane moves across the volume to display precipitation rates throughout the storm. Shades of green to red represent liquid precipitation extending down to the ground. The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission shows the rainfall distribution for two major storms churning in the Atlantic and Caribbean basins. The visualization shows Hurricane Jose as it continues to slowly move northward off the US East Coast east...

Using NASA Satellite Data to Predict Malaria Outbreaks

Friday, September 15, 2017

In the Peruvian Amazon, the Anopheles darlingi mosquito is most responsible for spreading malaria. With funding from NASA's Applied Sciences Program, scientists are turning to the agency’s fleet of Earth-observing satellites to develop a system that uses satellite and other data to help forecast malaria outbreaks at the household level months in advance and prevent them from happening. Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center / Joy Ng In the Amazon Rainforest, few animals are as dangerous to humans as mosquitos that transmit malaria. The tropical disease can bring on high fever, headaches...