------------------------------------------------------------------------- INFORMATION REGARDING NOAA AIRCRAFT OPERATIONS CENTER'S AIRCRAFT DATA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- For information on data from flights, please contact Flight Meteorologists: Primary: Ian Sears NOAA Aircraft Operations Center 3450 Flightline Drive Lakeland, FL 33811 Office Phone: 863-500-3986 Email: ian.sears@noaa.gov or Secondary: Mike Holmes NOAA Aircraft Operations Center 3450 Flightline Drive Lakeland, FL 33811 Office Phone: 863-500-3983 Email: mike.holmes@noaa.gov ------------------- -Flight Level Data: ------------------- All files have the mission ID (YYYYMMDDL# or YYMMDDL#) as a prefix, where YYYY is the 4-digit year (YY 2-digit yr), MM is the 2-digit month, DD is the 2-digit day, L is the aircraft alpha identifier (H-N42RF, I-N43RF and N-N49RF) and # is the chronological sequence number for that day’s mission (for days where more than 1 mission is flown). If there were data system acquisition issues there may exist multiple 1-Hz netcdf files alphabetically listed (“_B.nc”, “_C.nc”, etc.) for each restart of the acquisition system. If bad data was substituted in post processing using an alternate instrument, an X will be included in the file naming convention ("_AXC.nc, _BXC.nc, _CXC.nc, etc"). Example: 20130613H1_A.nc is a flight level data file from June 13, 2013 using aircraft N42RF and it was the 1st mission that day. Flight Level Metadata can be found in the .XML file. This includes information such as parameter names, descriptions, ranges, sample rates; Sensor channel assignments, coefficeints, calibration dates, manufacturers, serial numbers and sub-sensors. The word "original" is meaning that the file is created directly from the AAMPS data system on board the aircraft. "Calculated" refers to a file generated from the "Original" using an in house program called ACAT-4. ACAT-4 allows for post processing of the data such as selecting a secondary instrument instead of the primary for use in calculations and updating calibration coefficients. YYYYMMDDL#_A.nc - Original 1Hz netCDF file with all flight level measured and derived parameters YYYYMMDDL#_AC.nc - Calculated 1Hz netCDF file with all flight level measured and derived parameters using updated calibration coefficients YYYYMMDDL#_AX.nc - Calculated 1Hz netCDF file with all flight level measured parameters and corrected measured parameters using updated calibration coefficients YYYYMMDDL#_AXC.nc - Calculated 1Hz netCDF file with all flight level measured parameters, corrected measured parameters, and derived parameters using updated calibration coefficients. YYYYMMDDL#_A_Raw.nc: - Original multi-Hertz netCDF file with non-translated digital packets in engineering units containing all measured parameters YYYYMMDDL#_A_Raw_1Hz.nc - Original 1Hz netCDF file with all measured parameters YYYYMMDDL#_FST.nc - Original multi-Hertz netCDF file with all measured and derived parameters YYYYMMDDL#_A_IWG.dat - ASCII 1Hz flight level data measured and derived parameters. (not all measured and derived parameters are included) YYYYMMDDL#_serial.dat - ASCII 1Hz flight level data measured and derived parameters. (not all measured and derived parameters are included) --------------------------- -Drop Sonde Data (D-Files): --------------------------- These files can be viewed with a .txt document reader such as Windows Notepad. For more capability in processing and viewing dropsonde files, download the latest version of Aspen from http://www.eol.ucar.edu/data/software/aspen ------------ -Radar Data: ------------ The basic data moments captured by the TDR are as follows: dBT or T Uncorrected Reflectivity (DB_DBT2) dBZ or Z Clutter Corrected Reflectivity (DB_DBZ2) Vel or V Mean Radial Velocity (DB_VEL2) Width or W Doppler Spectrum Width (DB_WIDTH2) SQI Signal quality index for Doppler coherency [0 to 1] (DB_SQI2) The radar also captures platform data and stores in in the extended header v2 format. Extended Header data (DB_XHDR) This data is stored in one file for each data type for each sweep of the radar. These individual files are referred to as the ingest files. The processor also combines and compresses all of the ingest files from one sweep into a single file for each sweep, referred to as the raw product. At the end of the flight all of the raw products are archived into a single tar.gz file and all of the ingest files are archived into a separate tar.gz. For the G-IV TDR there are two radar systems, so there are 2 raw archives, and 2 ingest archives. For a more detailed description, every byte of every file produced is defined in the programmer's manual found at: ftp://ftp.sigmet.vaisala.com/outgoing/manuals/IRIS_Programmers_Manual.pdf Some useful sections are: 4.3.1 Extended_Header Format (DB_XHDR) 4.3.4 2-byte Reflectivity Format (DB_DBT2& DB_DBZ2) 4.3.27 2-byte Signal Quality Index Format (DB_SQI2) 4.3.30 2-byte Velocity Format (DB_VEL2) 4.3.36 2-byte Width Format (DB_WIDTH2) 4.4 Ingest Data File Format 4.5.4 RAW Product Format The other IRIS manuals can help in describing the data/moments: ftp://ftp.sigmet.vaisala.com/outgoing/manuals/IRIS_Radar_Manual.pdf ftp://ftp.sigmet.vaisala.com/outgoing/manuals/IRIS_Product_and_Display_Manuals.pdf The HRD workstation is taking the ingest/raw files in-flight as they are created and processing them using HRD's own software to create a dataset that is then transferred to the ground. I do not know what format the data going to the ground is in. ------------------------------------------------ -Step-Frequency Microwave Radiometer(SFMR) Data: ------------------------------------------------ There are two SFMR data files. Both are in the .dat format. YYYYMMDDL#_A_SFMR.dat - This file is produced by the AAMPS system and uses the same mission identifier found in the flight level data section. %A dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm:ss saa.aa sccc.cc seeeee sdd.dd sdd.dd fff.f ggg.g hh.h Description: Format: Units: Range: Start of message indicator %A Date dd/mm/yyyy Calendar date Example 15/04/2007 Time stamp hh:mm:ss UTC 00:00:00 to 23:59:59 Latitude saa.aa Degree -90.00 to +90.00 Longitude sccc.cc Degree -180.00 to +180.00 Aircraft flight alt seeeee Meter -2 to +15240 Aircraft Pitch sdd.dd Degree -60.00 to +60.00 Aircraft Roll sdd.dd Degree -90.00 to +90.00 Ambient air temperature at flight altitude fff.f Kelvin 0.0 to 999.0 Sea surface temperature (SST) ggg.g Kelvin 0.0 to 999.0 Sea salinity hh.h psu 00.0 to 99.0 SFMR1306032009.dat - This file is produced by the SFMR system. %R ddd hh:mm:ss www.w rrr.r e.ee d aSsptrrrrrr Field Format Maximum Field Length Range Min - Max Value Description ddd (3 ASCII characters) 001 – 999 SFMR-2005W-R serial number dd:dd:dd (8 ASCII characters) 00:00:00 - 23:59:59 Time stamp (UTC) SFMR2005W-P processor clock time stamp – synchronized with AUX INFO time stamp www.w (5 ASCII characters) 0.0 – 300.0 (999.9) Calculated wind speed (m/s) [999.9 indicates error in wind estimate rrr.r (5 ASCII characters) 0.0 – 300.0 (999.9) Calculated rain rate (mm/hr) [999.9 indicates error in rain rate estimate] e.ee (4 ASCII characters) 0 -9.99 Wind Error estimate (m/s) d (1 ASCII characters) 0 – 1 Data Validity 0: data valid 1: data not valid aSsptrrrrrr (11 ASCII characters) (for detailed description see below) SFMR instrument health status a – AUX INFO data stream 0 = receiving AUX INFO 1 = not receiving AUX INFO S – SST map 0 = SST map up to date 1 = SST map out of date (criteria will be set by NOAA) s – SFMR raw data stream 0 = receiving SFMR raw data 1 = not receiving SFMR raw data p – air pressure 0 = within the operating range 1 = high pressure outside the operating range 2 = low pressure – damage to the pressurized vessel – immediate service necessary t – SFMR Instrument internal temperature 0 = within the operating range 1 = outside the operating range rrrrrr – receiver channel status 0 = receivers ok 1 = receivers operating out of range %B nfrq ca cw cc srb Field Max Value Description nfrq 7 Index for VCO Frequency (0-7). ca 65535 Antenna brightness temperature (counts) cw 65535 Warm Load brightness temperature (counts) cc 65535 Cold Load brightness temperature (counts) srb 3 Digitizer sign and range bits * * Bit-1 is sign bit which is not used in mode 3. Bit-0 is range bit with 1 indicating out-of-range values. %T t0 t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 t6 Field Max Value Description Temperature reading by thermistor-i (counts): ti 1023 t0 – communications plate t1 – power supply plate t2 – cylinder base plate t3 – cold load t4 – warm load t5 – antenna radome t6 – spare Use time from previous C-record as time for T-record. Conversion from ti to temperature ( C ) = 0.1020 * ti – 41.0 %P ap id Field Max Value Description ap 1023 Air pressure (counts) id 255 Radiometer identification number (equals serial number) Conversion from ap to absolute air pressure ( psi ) = ( ap – 49 ) / 55 ------------------ -Novatel GPS Data: ------------------ YYYYMMDDL#_A_NOVATEL.dat Novatel file description: If Log header = GPGGA Log Header, Latitude, Latitude Direction, Longitude, Longitude direction, GPS quality, # of satellites, Horizontal dilution precision, Altitude, units, Age of Differential GPS data in seconds, Differential base station ID*check sum If Log Header = GPGSA Log Header, Mode (Automatic 2d/3d or Manual 2d or 3d), Mode (1-Fix not available, 2 = 2d, 3=3d), Position dilution precision, , Horizontal dilution precision, Vertical dilution precision*check sum If Log Header = GPGST Log Header, rms value of Standard Deviation of the range inputs to the navigation process. Range inputs include pseudoranges and DGPS corrections, Standard Deviation of semi-major axis of error ellipse (m), Standard Deviation of semi-minor axis of error ellipse (m), Orientation of semi-major axis of error ellipse (degrees from true north), Standard Deviation of latitude error (m), Standard Deviation of Longitude error (m)*Check sum ------------------------ Data Logs and Summaries: ------------------------ YYYYMMDDL#_A_FDlog.dat - Flight Director's in-flight log file YYYYMMDDL#_GapReport.dat - File generated by the data system stating when there were gaps in the data YYYYMMDDL#_xxx_selParams.txt - File describing the parameters used information used to compute Meteorological Variables YYYYMMDDL#_Mission_Document.pdf - Includes the error summary report for the final Quality Controlled data set as well as other mission related documents. Note: Error Summaries are produced by AOC flight meteorologists following each mission to assess the quality of the flight level data. Any sensor/data problems found with the flight level data will be noted here. This report will also include the primary sensors used in the derivation of calculated parameters for that particular flight.