WCRP and WWRP THORPEX YOTC (Year of Tropical Convection) Project, Single Parameter 3-Hourly Pressure Level Forecast Time Series, Transformed to a Regular 1600 by 800 (N400) Gaussian Grid, Dynamical Parameters Only

The realistic representation of tropical convection in our global atmospheric models is a long-standing grand challenge for numerical weather forecasts and global climate predictions. Our lack of fundamental knowledge and practical capabilities in this area leaves us disadvantaged in modeling and predicting prominent phenomena of the tropical atmosphere such as the ITCZ, ENSO, TBO, monsoons and their active or break periods, the MJO, subtropical stratus decks, near-surface ocean properties, easterly waves, tropical cyclones, bulk budgets of cloud microphysical quantities, and even the diurnal cycle. Furthermore, tropical weather and climate disturbances strongly influence stratospheric-tropospheric exchange as well as the extratropics, with the later mediated via poleward migration of synoptic systems or through initiating Rossby wave trains that can involve a range of processes and time scales. To address the challenge of tropical convection, WCRP and WWRP/THORPEX propose a Year of coordinated observing, modeling and forecasting of organized tropical convection and its influences on predictability as a contribution to the United Nations Year of Planet Earth to complement the International Polar Year (IPY). This effort is intended to exploit the vast amounts of existing and emerging observations, the expanding computational resources and the development of new, high-resolution modeling frameworks, with the objective of advancing the characterization, diagnosis, modeling, parameterization and prediction of multiscale convective and dynamic interactions, including the two-way interaction between tropical and extra-tropical weather or climate. This activity and its ultimate success will be based on the coordination of a wide range of ongoing and planned international programmatic activities (e.g., GEWEX/CEOP/GCSS, AMY, EOS, GOOS), strong collaboration among the operational prediction, research laboratory and academic communities, and the construction of a comprehensive data base consisting of satellite data, in-situ data sets and global, high-resolution forecast and simulation model outputs relevant to tropical convection. The proposed timing, focus year approach and integrated framework of this effort is intended to leverage the most benefit from recent investments in Earth Science infrastructure as well as entrain a new generation of young scientists into tackling the outstanding problems in the field of weather and climate prediction. It is recommended that potential users of YOTC peruse the Related RDA Datasets ds629.1-ds629.6 (please see below) which represent transformed versions of the raw ECMWF YOTC archive (ds629.0) by the Data Support Section. The transformed versions are archived on an N400 1600 by 800 regular Gaussian grid, starting from high resolution reduced Gaussian grids and spectral coefficients. In addition, horizontal winds have been added and computed from spectral vorticity and divergence.

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Temporal Range

  • Begin:  2008-05-01T1500+00
    End:  2010-05-01T1200+00

Keywords

Resource Type dataset
Temporal Range Begin 2008-05-01T1500+00
Temporal Range End 2010-05-01T1200+00
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat 89.828
Bounding Box South Lat -89.828
Bounding Box West Long -180.0
Bounding Box East Long 180.0
Spatial Representation grid
Spatial Resolution 0.225 degree
Related Links N/A
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format WMO GRIB1
Standardized Resource Format GRIB
Asset Size 2985085.928 MB
Legal Constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License


Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email datahelp@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization N/A
Distributor NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email datahelp@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange

Author European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
Publisher NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research
Publication Date 2014-09-11
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) https://doi.org/10.5065/D63776R8
Alternate Identifier d629006
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
Progress completed
Metadata Date 2025-10-09T01:28:11Z
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.gdex::d629006
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. (2014). WCRP and WWRP THORPEX YOTC (Year of Tropical Convection) Project, Single Parameter 3-Hourly Pressure Level Forecast Time Series, Transformed to a Regular 1600 by 800 (N400) Gaussian Grid, Dynamical Parameters Only. NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research. https://doi.org/10.5065/D63776R8. Accessed 10 October 2025.

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