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Chemical transport forecasts have become essential tools for tropospheric aircraft missions over the last few years. The use of these state-of-the-art models to define mission objectives, flight-planning, as well as to interpret observations allows to directly test atmospheric processes in a context where flight hours are often limited.

We have designed an interactive web interface to visualize and disseminate GEOS-CHEM model forecasts in support of two major field missions: ITCT2K2 (April-May 2002) and ICARTT (July-August 2004). In addition we are providing continuous access to Near-Real-Time global simulations with the GEOS-CHEM model since the summer of 2004. These three interfaces can be accessed here:

• GEOS chemical forecasts for ICARTT
• GEOS chemical forecasts for ITCT2K2
• GEOS-CHEM Near-Real-Time simulations

During the field missions, the five-day tracer forecasts were transferred automatically to our server at the University of Washington twice a day. Our web interface allows the on-line creation of maps, vertical profiles, animations, curtains, and timeseries from the forecast output. Using any web-browser, scientists involved in these field missions were able to generate custom maps and plots for specific regions, tracers, and time-periods.

The display part of our server is based on ION-Script (Research Systems Incorporated), which interfaces html code with IDL plotting scripts. The figure on the left illustrates the curtain plot generation option of our web site. This option allowed to "fly" the aircraft along way-points in the chemical forecasts so as to optimally design flight plans sampling predicted features. The mission scientists successfully used this tool during INTEX-A to guide the airplane in real time and examine the degree with which these features were captured by observations.