Section 1: Introduction This ERICA Data Users Guide is a catalog of data sets collected in the winter of 88/89 as part of the Experiment on Rapidly Intensifying Cyclones over the Atlantic (ERICA). When used in conjunction with the ERICA Field Phase Summary (FPS), this document will allow researchers to select and order specific data sets needed to study one or more of the ERICA storms. 1.1 Background ERICA is a program of basic research that has been designed to obtain a better scientific understanding of the rapid intensification of storms at sea. The program is part of the Office of Naval Researchs Heavy Weather at Sea Accelerated Research Initiative. The field phase of ERICA began on December 1, 1988, and ended on February 26, 1989, with an operations shutdown from December 22, 12 UTC to December 27, 12 UTC for a holiday break. During the field phase there were eight Intensive Observation Periods (IOPs) and three Limited Observation Periods (LOPs). ERICA field study activity is described in detail in the ERICA Field Phase Summary. The IOP/LOP times are reproduced below for convenience. IOP/LOP start - stop times duration IOP 1P 1/25/88 00 UTC- 12/26/88 23 UTC 47h IOP 1 12/9 12 UTC - 12/10 1930 UTC 31.5h IOP 2 12/12 15 UTC - 12/15 00 UTC 57h IOP 3 12/17 00 UTC - 12/19 00 UTC 48h IOP 4 1/3 12 UTC - 1/6 12 UTC 72h LOP 4A 1/11 12 UTC - 1/14 00 UTC 60h IOP 5 1/18 18 UTC - 1/20 12 UTC 42h LOP 5A 1/20 12 UTC - 1/21 18 UTC 30h LOP 6P 1/27 15 UTC - 1/28 06 UTC 15h IOP 6 2/8 08 UTC - 2/9 01 UTC 17h IOP 7 2/12 06 UTC - 2/13 12 UTC 30h IOP 8 2/23 20 UTC - 2/26 06 UTC 58h Total: 507.5 hours (21 days, 3.5 hours) 1.2 The ERICA Data Users Guide The ERICA Data Users Guide (DUG) documents the entirety of the data collected during the ERICA field phase. It is not intended to provide detailed information on data format or content; this information is always distributed with the data. The Guide provides a summary of each sets origin, contents, availability, and size. For organizational purposes the data sets have been divided into six categories, aircraft, sounding, radar, satellite, boundary layer, and multi-source data sets. Each of these categories is treated in a separate section of the Guide. This section (section 1) contains general information about ERICA, other ERICA documents, and the services provided by the ERICA Data Center (EDC). The Guide is being distributed in notebook form to facilitate updates. As new data sets are acquired or developed by the Data Center, an update to the Guide will be prepared. It will be distributed by the Data Manager in the Fall of 1990. 1.3 Other ERICA-Related Documents Several other large documents have been prepared on different aspects of ERICA, and may be useful for some researchers. These documents are available from the Data Center. (The ERICA Satellite Atlas is described in section 5.1 of this Guide). The ERICA Storm Atlas, Volume 1 (Hadlock, 1987) provides summary information on 51 historical ERICA storms from 1976 to 1985. The criterion used to select these storms was that the central pressure deepened 10 mb/6 hours or more, for at least six hours. Furthermore, the storms must occur in the region 30-55 North and 50-85 West between 1 December and the last day in February. Volume 1 of the Atlas includes data derived from the NMC North American Surface charts (e.g. location and pressure of storms centers), graphs of the pressure fall vs. time, storm tracks, comparisons against Northern Hemisphere Surface charts for the first and last seasons storms, and various other summary data. These data were drawn from the three-hourly NMC surface analyses and, consequently, only contain the data that were available to NMC in real-time. The 51 storms included in this atlas are listed in Appendix D of this Guide. The ERICA Storm Atlas, Volume 2, is the actual data from which the Volume 1 summaries were drawn, and is not a single document, per se, but rather a collection of data for each storm. Included are: North American 3-hourly surface charts, Northern Hemisphere 6-hourly surface charts, North American 12-hourly height-temperature analyses at 850, 500, and 300 mb, 3-hourly surface marine charts, tabular listings of the marine data. There are over 100 pages for each of the 51 storms, and each storm will be billed as a separate document (at $15 per document). The ERICA Field Implementation Plan (FIP) (Hadlock, 1987) contains the status of scientific thinking and requirements for ERICA, along with a general description of the observing systems, strategies, and implementation plans, as of November, 1987. It is not anticipated that the FIP will be needed by most researchers. The ERICA Field Operations Plan (FOP) (Hadlock, 1988) contains detailed plans for the conduct of the Field Study, including plans and details for communications, forecasting/nowcasting, observing systems and operations, and data management. The FOP contains many lists, tables, etc. that were invaluable during the field study, but are of limited use to most ERICA researchers after the fact. The ERICA Field Phase Summary (FPS) (Hartnett, Forbes, Hadlock, 1989) provides summary data from the field study. After some introductory material, each IOP is treated separately. IOP sections include a meteorological summary (containing storm tracks, model analyses, satellite imagery, daily weather maps, and SST analyses) and a operations and observations summary (containing aircraft mission tracks and summaries, drifting buoy location maps, data collection charts, and dropsonde location maps). Inter-IOP activity (including LOPs) is treated similarly. 1.4 Ordering ERICA Data Orders for ERICA data should be directed to the Data Center: ERICA Data Center Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science Drexel University Philadelphia, PA 19104 (215) 895-2786 The Data Manager may also be contacted via OMNET as ERICA.DATA.CENTER, or at internet address ed@convex.drexel.edu (internet address number is: [129.25.1.200]). The data are usually available on a variety of media. The most common medium is 6250 bpi magnetic tape, and that is the assumed medium of data exchange for digital data. However, any data available on magnetic tape are available at 1600 bpi on request, and also on paper, Macintosh, or DOS disks of various densities and formats. Small data sets can be sent via various electronic mail networks, including SPAN, OMNET, and the NSFnet. Many researchers will be interested in ordering the ERICA CD ROM. The CD is described in section 7 and contains many of the most popular data sets, along with documentation and access software. At $35 per CD, this is undoubtably the most economical medium. The Data Center operates on a cost-recovery basis, using the collected fees to extend the services provided. Magnetic tapes with ERICA data cost $50, whether they are 1600 or 6250 bpi. Videotapes and large documents (listed in section 1.3) typically cost $15 each; diskettes are $5; maps, analyses, printouts of data or microfilm cost $.10 per page. Researchers will receive an invoice with their order; purchase orders are not necessary. Due to limited manpower, special data requests take longer than standard products. We attempt to package the data in the most conveniently accessible formats possible. For reasons of economy, our policy is to distribute entire data sets, rather than portions of the sets, except for very large sets. Often data sets are updated; in some cases new data becomes available and is added to the set, in other cases mistakes in the processing of the data are discovered and new, corrected sets are released. The Data Center will replace data which are distributed on magnetic tape free of charge, provided that the earlier tape is returned for recycling. The Data Manager maintains a database of all orders to ensure that researchers will be notified should one of the data sets which they have received from the Data Center be updated. While we make every effort to assure that our processing is error-free, experience has taught us that we cannot expect to succeed completely. If an error is discovered in a data set, please contact the Data Center immediately. We will contact all other researchers who have received the set and alert them to the problem. We will attempt to fix it as quickly as possible and redistribute the data set. Information on new and updated data sets will be posted on the OMNET bulletin board ERICA.ANALYSIS; researchers who do not have access to that board may wish to periodically contact the Data Manager to discuss new data sets. 1.5 Data Sets Not Available from the Data Center The following ERICA data sets are not available from the ERICA Data Center, but may be of interest to some researchers. See Appendix B for addresses and phone numbers. SUNY Lightning Data Dr. Richard Orville, SUNY, Albany Electra High Rate Data Ron Ruth, NCAR Electra Videotapes Dr. Kerry Emanuel, MIT Sabreliner Videotapes Dr. Ron Smith, Yale Unprocessed WP-3D Cloud Microphysics Data Dr. Walter Strapp, AES 5-minute Otis AFB Profiler and hourly RASS Data Dr. Greg Forbes, Penn. State AVHRR Digital and Hardcopy Imagery, Satellite Data Services Division 1.6 PreERICA Data In the winter of 87/88 an ERICA-type storm was studied as a preparation for ERICA. Two WP-3D missions were flown on 1/28/88 and 1/29/88 from which the following data are available: WP-3D Flight Level Data (see section 2.1.2 for a description of these data) WP-3D Compressed Flight Level Data (see section 2.1.1) WP-3D Radar Data (see section 2.1.3) Pre-ERICA PIREPS from PROFS (see section 2.3.2) Also available are some preliminary LeSonde Data (see section 3.3.1), some AWS Flight Level Data (see section 2.3.1) and some AWS Dropwindsonde Data (see section 3.3.3). Please contact the Data Manager for more details.