We have developed a very simple method to represent cloud realistically with the aid of Google Earth. Two physical quantities computed in the atmospheric simulation model are utilized for the method. Figure 1 shows the display results of applying the proposed method. In this method, the downward shortwave radiation is used for determining the color of clouds and the cloud content for the opacity. These physical quantities are visualized separately by using the volume representation function of VDVGE and exported as content files for Google Earth. PNG images included in each content file are combined as new images with the color based on the downward shortwave radiation and the opacity based on the cloud content.

Presenter(s)

Shintaro Kawahara , JAMSTEC

Ryo Onishi , JAMSTEC

Koji Goto , NEC Corporation

Keiko Takahashi , JAMSTEC