Title: VALIXR - Visualizing Lagrangian Climate Model Data in XR
Presenting Author: Thomas Grubb
Organization: Goddard Space Flight Center
Co-Author(s): Kaur Kullman, Thomas Clune, Leslie R Lait, Matthias Zwicker, Stephen Guimond, Ruth West, Roger Eastman, Don Engel, Troy Ames and Jeffrey Hosler

Abstract:
Traditionally, scientists view and analyze the result of calculated or measured observables with static 1-D, 2-D, or 3-D plots. It can be hard to identify, track, and understand the evolution of key features due to poor viewing angles and the nature of flat computer screens. Numerical models, such as the NASA GEOS climate model, are almost exclusively formulated and analyzed on Eulerian grids with points fixed in space and time. However, atmospheric phenomena such as convective clouds, hurricanes and wildfire smoke plumes move with the 3-D flow field, and it is often difficult and unnatural to understand these phenomena in an Eulerian reference frame as opposed to the Lagrangian reference frame in which nature operates. In this presentation, we will discuss our work for the AIST-2021 project to develop a scientific exploration and analysis tool, using virtual reality (VR), with integrated Lagrangian Dynamics (LD) to help scientists identify, track, and understand the evolution of Earth Science phenomena in the NASA GEOS model. We have worked to: 1. Enhance GEOS to calculate Lagrangian trajectories of Earth Science phenomena and output budget terms (e.g., momentum) and parcel attributes (e.g., temperature) that describe their dynamics 2. Enhance the NASA open source eXtended Reality (XR, i.e., AR and VR) tool, the Mixed Reality Exploration Toolkit (MRET), to visualize and animate GEOS fields as well as initialize and track LD features (e.g., parcel trajectories).