WCRP and WWRP THORPEX YOTC (Year of Tropical Convection) Project, Single Parameter 6-Hourly Surface Analysis and Surface Forecast Time Series, Transformed to a Regular 1600 by 800 (N400) Gaussian Grid
d629001
<p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p><b>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.</b></p>
dataset
https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d629001/
protocol: https
name: Dataset Description
description: Related Link
function: information
https://gdex.ucar.edu/datasets/d629001/dataaccess/
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name: Data Access
description: Related Link
function: download
climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
dataset
revision
2021-03-30
MODELS > MODELS
revision
2025-10-03
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > AIR QUALITY > TROPOSPHERIC OZONE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > PLANETARY BOUNDARY LAYER HEIGHT
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > GRAVITY WAVE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SEA LEVEL PRESSURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SURFACE PRESSURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION > HEAT FLUX
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION > INCOMING SOLAR RADIATION
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION > LONGWAVE RADIATION
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION > OUTGOING LONGWAVE RADIATION
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION > SHORTWAVE RADIATION
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION > SUNSHINE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > SURFACE TEMPERATURE > AIR TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > SURFACE TEMPERATURE > MAXIMUM/MINIMUM TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > DEW POINT TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > TOTAL PRECIPITABLE WATER
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > WATER VAPOR
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR PROCESSES > EVAPORATION
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > SURFACE WINDS
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > CONVECTION
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > WIND DYNAMICS > WIND STRESS
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > CLOUDS > CLOUD PROPERTIES > CLOUD FREQUENCY
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION AMOUNT
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > SOLID PRECIPITATION > SNOW
EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > VEGETATION > VEGETATION COVER
EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > VEGETATION > VEGETATION SPECIES
EARTH SCIENCE > CRYOSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW/ICE TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > SOILS > SOIL CLASSIFICATION
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > SOILS > SOIL MOISTURE/WATER CONTENT
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > SOILS > SOIL TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > SURFACE RADIATIVE PROPERTIES > ALBEDO
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > SURFACE THERMAL PROPERTIES > SKIN TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > TOPOGRAPHY > SURFACE ROUGHNESS
EARTH SCIENCE > LAND SURFACE > TOPOGRAPHY > TERRAIN ELEVATION
EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN TEMPERATURE > SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > SEA ICE > ICE EXTENT
EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > ALBEDO
EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW DENSITY
EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW DEPTH
EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW/ICE TEMPERATURE
EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SNOW/ICE > SNOW MELT
EARTH SCIENCE > TERRESTRIAL HYDROSPHERE > SURFACE WATER > SURFACE WATER PROCESSES/MEASUREMENTS > RUNOFF
revision
2025-10-03
-180.0
180.0
89.828
-89.828
2008-05-01T0000+00
2010-05-01T1200+00
publication
2012-03-12
notPlanned
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
None
pointOfContact
NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange
name: NSF NCAR Geoscience Data Exchange
description: The Geoscience Data Exchange (GDEX), managed by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NSF NCAR, contains a large collection of meteorological, atmospheric composition, and oceanographic observations, and operational and reanalysis model outputs, integrated with NSF NCAR High Performance Compute services to support atmospheric and geosciences research.
function: download
pointOfContact
2025-10-09T01:28:01Z