Identification

Title

NCEP ADP Global Upper Air and Surface Weather Observations (PREPBUFR format)

Alternative title(s)

d337000

Abstract

NCEP ADP Global Upper Air and Surface Weather Observations (PREPBUFR format) are composed of a global set of surface and upper air reports operationally collected by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). These include land surface, marine surface, radiosonde, pibal and aircraft reports from the Global Telecommunications System (GTS), profiler and US radar derived winds, SSM/I oceanic winds and TCW retrievals, and satellite wind data from the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS). The reports can include pressure, geopotential height, temperature, dew point temperature, wind direction and speed. Report time intervals range from hourly to 12 hourly. These data are the output from the PREPBUFR processing performed at NCEP, which is the final step in preparing the majority of conventional observational data for assimilation into the various NCEP analyses including the North American Model (NAM) and NAM Data Assimilation System (NDAS) unified grid-point statistical interpolation (GSI) analysis (the "NAM" and "NDAS" networks), the Global Forecast System (GFS) and Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) unified grid-point statistical interpolation (GSI) analysis (the "GFS" and "GDAS" networks), the Rapid Refresh (RAP) unified grid-point statistical interpolation (GSI) analysis (the "RAP" network), the Real Time Mesoscale Analysis (RTMA) unified grid-point statistical interpolation (GSI) analysis (the "RTMA" network), and the Climate Data Assimilation System (CDAS) spectral statistical interpolation (SSI) analysis (the "CDAS" network). This step involves the execution of series of programs designed to assemble observations dumped from a number of on-line decoder databases, encode information about the observational error for each data type as well the background (first guess) interpolated to each data location, perform both rudimentary multi-platform quality control and more complex platform-specific quality control, and store the output in a monolithic BUFR file, known as PREPBUFR. The background guess information is used by certain quality control programs while the observation error is used by the analysis to weigh the observations. The structure of the BUFR file is such that each PREPBUFR processing step which changes a datum (either the observation itself, or its quality marker) records the change as an "event" with a program code and a reason code. Each time an event is stored, the previous events for the datum are "pushed down" in the stack. In this way, the PREPBUFR file contains a complete history of changes to the data throughout all of the PREPBUFR processing. The most recent changes are always at the top of the stack and are thus read first by any subsequent data decoder routine. It is expected that the data at the top of the stack are of the highest quality. The data provided here are also available in NetCDF and ASCII formats, which can be accessed by following the "Get a subset" link on the ds337.0 data access page [https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds337.0/#!access]. The NetCDF datafiles are converted from PREPBUFR format using the pb2nc utility in the Model Evaluation Tools (MET) software package.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/d337000/

protocol: https

applicationProfile: browser

name: Dataset Description

description: Related Link

function: information

https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/d337000/dataaccess/

protocol: https

applicationProfile: browser

name: Data Access

description: Related Link

function: download

Unique resource identifier

code

codeSpace

Dataset language

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

dataset

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2014-10-16

Keyword set

keyword value

WEATHER STATIONS > WEATHER STATIONS

SATELLITES > SATELLITES

Ships

BUOYS

AWOS > Automated Weather Observing System

ASOS > Automated Surface Observing System

PIBAL > Pilot Balloons

AIRCRAFT

originating controlled vocabulary

title

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Change Master Directory

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2024-08-09

Keyword set

keyword value

NEXRAD > NEXt Generation RADar

SSM/I > Special Sensor Microwave/Imager

RADIOSONDES > RADIOSONDES

WIND PROFILERS > WIND PROFILERS

PRESSURE SENSORS > PRESSURE SENSORS

THERMOMETERS > THERMOMETERS

DROPSONDES

HUMIDITY SENSORS > HUMIDITY SENSORS

originating controlled vocabulary

title

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Change Master Directory

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2024-08-09

Keyword set

keyword value

WRF > WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) Modeling

originating controlled vocabulary

title

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Change Master Directory

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2024-08-09

Keyword set

keyword value

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > SEA LEVEL PRESSURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > SURFACE WINDS

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > STATION HEIGHT

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WINDS > UPPER LEVEL WINDS

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR > WATER VAPOR INDICATORS > DEW POINT TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE > UPPER AIR TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE > ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE MEASUREMENTS

EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN TEMPERATURE > SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE

EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > GEOPOTENTIAL HEIGHT

EARTH SCIENCE > OCEANS > OCEAN WINDS > SURFACE WINDS

originating controlled vocabulary

title

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Global Change Master Directory

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2024-08-09

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-179.9998

East bounding longitude

180

North bounding latitude

90

South bounding latitude

-90

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1997-04-30

End position

2024-08-31

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2008-04-30

Frequency of update

daily

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Research Data Archive

full postal address

National Center for Atmospheric Research

CISL/DECS

P.O. Box 3000

Boulder

80307

U.S.A.

telephone number

(303)-497-1217

facsimile number

303-497-1291

email address

tcram@ucar.edu

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

NCAR Research Data Archive

full postal address

National Center for Atmospheric Research

CISL/DECS

P.O. Box 3000

Boulder

80307

U.S.A.

facsimile number

303-497-1291

email address

rdahelp@ucar.edu

web address

https://rda.ucar.edu/

name: NCAR Research Data Archive

description: The Research Data Archive (RDA), managed by the Data Engineering and Curation Section (DECS) of the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NCAR, contains a large and diverse collection of meteorological and oceanographic observations, operational and reanalysis model outputs, and remote sensing datasets to support atmospheric and geosciences research, along with ancillary datasets, such as topography/bathymetry, vegetation, and land use.

function: downlaod

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2024-08-31T10:05:01Z

Metadata language

eng; USA