Community Tool Development for Tables of Aerosol and Cloud Optics

This project develops a relational database and interactive web system to organize and share aerosol and cloud optical and microphysical data from the Tables of Aerosol and Cloud Optics (TACO) that is part of the MIRA working group. The TACO project is an extension of historical efforts (e.g., Shettle and Fenn, 1979; d’Almeida et al., 1991; Koepke et al., 1997; Hess et al., 1998) on providing libraries of aerosol and cloud characteristics for applications in global chemical transport modeling and remote sensing. The optical and microphysical properties of aerosols and clouds are classified according to their origin, type, geographic region, wavelengths set etc. The combination of these characteristics, along with anticipated evolution, the open access and interactive principles of TACO, suggests that the data set structure becomes increasingly complex. We therefore suggest using specialized computer science techniques for the TACO data organization and management. To this end, we employ the relational database that consists in the data structuring in multiple tables with indexation relating the entities and their values in unique or multiple connections. The project will enable uploading the TACO data into the format of relational database and creation of a web interface for an efficient and interactive communication with the community. The presentation is expected to gather valuable feedback from modelers, in-situ and remote sensing experts on the data needs, exchange formats and potential applications.