**Acknowledgements**

The East Africa's Regional Centre of Excellence in Biomedical Engineering and E-health (CEBE), operating under the University of Rwanda College of Science and Technology (UR CST), is highly acknowledged for some financial support to this research.

We are very grateful with the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), for the involvement of the University's Academic Staff Members in this research.

Last but foremost, the efforts made by all the team members of GES DISC, who contributed to enrich GIOVANNI with the useful and resourceful research tools are highly acknowledged: many thanks are addressed to NASA and fellow scientists for the supportive data that are made available online.
