ICE-T GTS Rawinsonde Sounding Data

1.0 General Description

This is one of the upper air data sets developed for the Ice in Clouds Experiment - Tropics (ICE-T) project. This data set includes 299 GTS mandatory and significant level soundings from 6 stations in the Carribean region for the period 1-31 July 2011. Stations typically released soundings at 00 and/or 12 UTC. These data were provided by NOAA/ESRL and are in their ASCII format.

1.1 Data Set Contact

Scot Loehrer
NCAR/EOL
loehrer@ucar.edu

2.0 Detailed Data Description

2.1 Detailed Format Description

                          FSL Rawinsonde data format

The official FSL data format is similar to the format used by the National
Severe Storms Forecast Center (NSSFC) in Kansas City.  The first 4 lines of
the sounding are identification and information lines. All additional lines
are data lines.  An entry of 32767 (original format) or 99999 (new format)
indicates that the information is either missing, not reported, or not
applicable.

                            ---COLUMN NUMBER---

      1          2          3          4          5          6           7
 LINTYP
                                header lines
    254        HOUR        DAY      MONTH       YEAR    (blank)     (blank)
      1       WBAN#       WMO#        LAT D      LON D     ELEV       RTIME
      2       HYDRO       MXWD      TROPL      LINES     TINDEX      SOURCE
      3     (blank)      STAID    (blank)    (blank)      SONDE     WSUNITS

                                data lines
      9    PRESSURE     HEIGHT       TEMP      DEWPT   WIND DIR    WIND SPD
      4
      5
      6
      7
      8

                                    LEGEND

LINTYP: type of identification line
        254 = indicates a new sounding in the output file
          1 = station identification line
          2 = sounding checks line
          3 = station identifier and other indicators line
          4 = mandatory level
          5 = significant level
          6 = wind level (PPBB) (GTS or merged data)
          7 = tropopause level (GTS or merged data)
          8 = maximum wind level (GTS or merged data)
          9 = surface level

HOUR:   time of report in UTC
LAT:    latitude in degrees and hundredths
LON:    longitude in degrees and hundredths

D:      direction latitude ('N' or 'S') or longitude ('E' or 'W') -note this
                only appears in the online archive containing international
                observations.
ELEV:   elevation from station history in meters
RTIME:  is the release time of radiosonde balloon
HYDRO:  the pressure of the level to where the sounding passes the hydrostatic
        check (see section 4.3).**
MXWD:   the pressure of the level having the maximum wind in the sounding.  If
        within the body of the sounding there is no "8" level then
        MXWN is estimated (see section 3.2).
TROPL:  the pressure of the level containing the tropopause. If within the
        body of the sounding there is no "7" level, then TROPL is estimated
        (see section 3.3)**
LINES:  number of levels in the sounding, including the 4 identification lines.
TINDEX: indicator for estimated tropopause. A "7" indicates that sufficient
        data was available to attempt the estimation; 11 indicates that data
        terminated and that tropopause is a "suspected" tropopause.
SOURCE: 0 = National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)
        1 = Atmospheric Environment Service (AES), Canada
        2 = National Severe Storms Forecast Center (NSSFC)
        3 = GTS or FSL GTS data only
        4 = merge of NCDC and GTS data (sources 2,3 merged into sources 0,1)
SONDE:  type of radiosonde code from TTBB. Only reported with GTS data
        10 = VIZ "A" type radiosonde
        11 = VIZ "B" type radiosonde
        12 = Space data corp.(SDC) radiosonde.
WSUNITS:wind speed units (selected upon output)
        ms = tenths of meters per second
        kt = knots

PRESSURE: in whole millibars (original format)
          in tenths of millibars (new format)
HEIGHT:   height in meters (m)
TEMP:     temperature in tenths of degrees Celsius
DEWPT:    dew point temperature in tenths of a degree Celsius
WIND DIR: wind direction in degrees
WIND SPD: wind speed in either knots or tenths of a meter per second
          (selected by user upon output)

An example of fortran format statements necessary to read output rawinsonde
data, according to LINTYP, is as follows:

                    LINTYP
                       254    (3i7,6x,a4,i7)
                         1    (3i7,f7.2,a1,f6.2,a1,i6,i7)
                         2    (7i7)
                         3    (i7,10x,a4,14x,i7,5x,a2)
               4,5,6,7,8,9    (7i7)


Note the format descriptor for LINTYP=1 has changed to conform with the
CDROM archive.

**- section of noaa tech memo on the data base (in print)


 TECHNICAL INFORMATION: Schwartz, B.E., and M. Govett, 1992: "A hydrostatically
  consistent North American Radiosonde Data Base at the forecast Systems
  Laboratory, 1946-present." NOAA Technical Memorandum ERL FSL-4. Available
  from NOAA/ERL/FSL 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303.

2.2 Data Remarks

2.3 Station List

3.0 Quality Control Processing

NCAR/EOL has not conducted any quality control of this data set.

4.0 References