TOS²CA: The Thematic Observation Search, Segmentation, Collation and Analysis System

Background Thematic Observation Search, Segmentation, Collation and Analysis (TOS 2 CA) is an end-to-end system that allows the user to define, collect, and visualize data relevant to naturally occurring phenomena that can be used for current and future Earth science missions and research. Methods TOS 2 CA is a cloud-native, Python-based software library that allows users to define physical phenomena using a conditional threshold to identify occurrences of them in a dataset, tracking them spatially and temporally, and generating a series of masks for the user. The user can then continue through TOS 2 CA’s workflow and select a variable from any regularly gridded dataset in the system and request a subset of data that is interpolated and constrained to the bounds of the mask. This curated data can then be delivered to the user or visualized in web-based analysis tools that allow users to view multivariate plots and interrogate statistical conditions. Results TOS 2 CA has been developed for two distinct use cases – preparing to use data for studies related to NASA’s upcoming INvestigation of Convective UpdraftS (INCUS) mission and developing climatologies over wildfire burn areas in California. Testing the system with both use cases produced scientifically valid output files that were then used with TOS 2 CA’s visualization tools to perform multivariate analyses. Discussion TOS 2 CA can be used for a wide array of interdisciplinary research and applications tasks by allowing users to collect relevant data from multiple sources over lengthy time periods and wide spatial regions, to ultimately visualize results in a single, self-contained, end-to-end fashion that does not currently exist elsewhere.