NAME R/V El Puma High Resolution Rawinsonde Data Set

1.0 General Description

This is one of the upper air data sets developed for the North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME). This data set includes the high vertical resolution (approximately 10 second) tethersonde data from the Research Vessel (R/V) El Puma. During NAME the R/V El Puma conducted the ECAC-5 cruise (6-17 August 2004).

The release location was determined from a seperate navigational parameters file containing one minute data. The nearest minute in the navigational parameters file was used from the release time of the sounding.

An additional document Reporte-ECAC-5.doc was provided from the ECAC project that describes the methodology used by the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) in developing the data set. This document is in Spanish.

This dataset was not quality controlled by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Joint Office for Science Support (UCAR/JOSS).

1.1 Contact

     Dr. Victor O. Magana Rueda
     Departamento de Meteorologia General
     Centro de Ciencias de la Atmosfera
     Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
     Ciudad Universitaria
     04510 Mexico, D.F.

     Phone: (525) 622 4088
     Fax:   (525) 616 0789
     Email: victormr@servidor.unam.mx

2.0 Detailed Data Description

2.1 Detailed Format Description

All upper air soundings were converted to University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Joint Office for Science Support (UCAR/JOSS) Cross Chain LORAN Atmospheric Sounding System (CLASS) Format (JCF). JCF is a version of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) CLASS format and is an ASCII format consisting of 15 header records for each sounding followed by the data records with associated QC information.

Header Records

The header records (15 total records) contain data type, project ID, site ID, site location, release time, sonde type, meteorological and wind data processors, and the operator's name and comments. The first five header lines contain information identifying the sounding, and have a rigidly defined form. The following 7 header lines are used for auxiliary information and comments about the sounding, and may vary from dataset to dataset. The last 3 header records contain header information for the data columns. Line 13 holds the field names, line 14 the field units, and line 15 contains dashes ('-' characters) delineating the extent of the field.

The five standard header lines are as follows:

LineLabel (padded to 35 char)Contents
1Data Type:Description of type and resolution of data.
2Project ID:Id of weather project.
3Release Site Type/Site ID:Description of the release site.
4Release Location (lon,lat,alt):Position of release site in the format described below.
5UTC Release Time (y,m,d,h,m,s):Time of release, in the format: yyyy, mm, dd, hh:mm:ss

The release location is given as: lon (deg min), lat (deg min), lon (dec. deg), lat (dec. deg), alt (m)

Longitude in deg min is in the format: ddd mm.mm'W where ddd is the number of degrees from True North (with leading zeros if necessary), mm.mm is the decimal number of minutes, and W represents W or E for west or east longitude, respectively. Latitude has the same format as longitude, except there are only two digits for degrees and N or S for north/south latitude. The decimal equivalent of longitude and latitude and station elevation follow.

The seven non-standard header lines may contain any label and contents. The labels are padded to 35 characters to match the standard header lines. Records for this dataset include the following three non-standard header lines.

12Nominal Release Time (y,m,d,h,m,s):Nominal time of release, in the format: yyyy, mm, dd, hh:mm:ss

Data Records

The data records each contain time from release, pressure, temperature, dew point, relative humidity, U and V wind components, wind speed and direction, ascent rate, balloon position data, altitude, and quality control flags (see the QC code description). Each data line contains 21 fields, separated by spaces, with a total width of 130 characters. The data are right-justified within the fields. All fields have one decimal place of precision, with the exception of latitude and longitude, which have three decimal places of precision. The contents and sizes of the 21 fields that appear in each data record are as follows:

Field No.WidthFormatParameterUnitsMissing Value
16F6.1TimeSeconds9999.0
26F6.1PressureMillibars9999.0
35F5.1Dry-bulb TemperatureDegrees C999.0
45F5.1Dew Point TemperatureDegrees C999.0
55F5.1Relative HumidityPercent999.0
66F6.1U Wind ComponentMeters / Second9999.0
76F6.1V Wind ComponentMeters / Second9999.0
85F5.1Wind SpeedMeters / Second999.0
95F5.1Wind DirectionDegrees999.0
105F5.1Ascent RateMeters / Second999.0
118F8.3LongitudeDegrees9999.0
127F7.3LatitudeDegrees999.0
135F5.1Elevation AngleDegrees999.0
145F5.1Azimuth AngleDegrees999.0
157F7.1AltitudeMeters99999.0
164F4.1QC for PressureCode (see below)99.0
174F4.1QC for TemperatureCode (see below)99.0
184F4.1QC for HumidityCode (see below)99.0
194F4.1QC for U Wind ComponentCode (see below)99.0
204F4.1QC for V Wind ComponentCode (see below)99.0
214F4.1QC for Ascension RateCode (see below)99.0

Fields 16 through 21 contain the Quality Control information derived at the UCAR Joint Office for Science Support (UCAR/JOSS). Any QC information from the original sounding is replaced by the following JOSS codes:

CodeDescription
99.0Unchecked (QC information is "missing.") ("UNCHECKED")
1.0Checked, datum seems physically reasonable. ("GOOD")
2.0Checked, datum seems questionable on physical basis. ("MAYBE")
3.0Checked, datum seems to be in error. ("BAD")
4.0Checked, datum is interpolated. ("ESTIMATED")
9.0Checked, datum was missing in original file. ("MISSING")

Sample Data

The following is a sample record of El Puma NAME high resolution tethersonde data in JOSS CLASS format. The data portion is much longer than 80 characters and, therefore, wraps around to a second line. See section 2.1 for an exact format specification

Data Type:                         R/V El Puma Tethersonde Data
Project ID:                        NAME
Release Site Type/Site ID:         XCUM R/V El Puma: Cruise ECAC-5
Release Location (lon,lat,alt):    107 29.46'W, 20 29.23'N, -107.491, 20.487, 999.0
UTC Release Time (y,m,d,h,m,s):    2004, 08, 06, 12:00:00
/
/
/
/
/
/
Nominal Release Time (y,m,d,h,m,s):2004, 08, 06 12:00:00
 Time  Press  Temp  Dewpt  RH    Ucmp   Vcmp   spd   dir   Wcmp     Lon     Lat   Ele   Azi   Alt    Qp   Qt   Qrh  Qu   Qv   QdZ
  sec    mb     C     C     %     m/s    m/s   m/s   deg   m/s      deg     deg   deg   deg    m    code code code code code code
------ ------ ----- ----- ----- ------ ------ ----- ----- ----- -------- ------- ----- ----- ------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
  26.0 1012.1  31.5  24.3  65.7    0.3   -1.2   1.2 345.0 999.0 -107.491  20.487 999.0 999.0 99999.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0  9.0
  37.0 1012.0  31.1  24.4  67.2   -0.6   -0.8   1.0  39.0 999.0 9999.000 999.000 999.0 999.0 99999.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0  9.0
  47.0 1012.0  30.5  24.3  69.8    0.1   -1.2   1.2 357.0 999.0 9999.000 999.000 999.0 999.0 99999.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0  9.0
  58.0 1011.8  30.4  24.2  69.7   -0.1   -1.3   1.3   6.0 999.0 9999.000 999.000 999.0 999.0 99999.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0  9.0
  68.0 1011.9  31.2  24.1  65.9    0.1   -1.3   1.3 357.0 999.0 9999.000 999.000 999.0 999.0 99999.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0  9.0
  79.0 1012.0  31.4  24.2  65.4    0.1   -1.0   1.0 355.0 999.0 9999.000 999.000 999.0 999.0 99999.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0 99.0  9.0

2.2 Data Remarks

2.3 Station List

IDSITECOUNTRYLONGLATELEV (m)
XCUMR/V El Puma: Cruise ECAC-5MX9999.0999.099999.0

3.0 Quality Control Processing

This dataset did not undergo any QC processing.

4.0 References

Loehrer, S. M., T. A. Edmands, and J. A. Moore, 1996: TOGA COARE upper-air sounding data archive: development and quality control procedures. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 77, 2651-2671.

Loehrer, S. M., S. F. Williams, and J. A. Moore, 1998: Results from UCAR/JOSS quality control of atmospheric soundings from field projects. Preprints, Tenth Symposium on Meteorological Observations and Instrumentation, Phoenix, AZ, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 1-6.