This directory contains gzipped ASCII data files of:

  sea surface temperature (SST) in degrees C
  zonal wind component (u) in m/s
  meridional wind component (v) in m/s
  zonal wind stress component (u-stress) in N/m^2
  meridional wind stress component (v-stress) in N/m^2

The data were composite averaged over 3-day periods at overlapping daily
intervals on a 0.25 degree grid covering the geographical region 25S-25N
and 115W-75W.

Each 3-day composite average map was then smoothed spatially with a
2-dimensional loess smoother with smoothing parameters that correspond to
half-power filter cutoff wavelengths of 2 degrees of latitude by 2 degrees
of longitude.  This smoothing is analogous to the filtering properties of
simple 1-degree block averages, except that the filter side lobes are much
smaller for the loess smoother than for the block average.

The gridded and smoothed SST, vector wind and wind stress data values are
referenced by latitude in degrees N (negative for southern latitudes) and
longitude in degrees E.  The spatially smoothed, 3-day composite average
data files span the time period from 1 August 2001 to 30 November 2001.  
The files are named according to center date of each 3-day composite
average as YYYYMMDD.dat. Missing values are denoted by 9999.