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Eta Data Assimilation System (EDAS) Archive InformationNCEP Model Output -- EDAS ARCHIVE TD-6141 Archive began: January 1, 1997 Archive ended: April 30, 2004 Prepared for the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) by Glenn D. Rolph NOAA-Air Resources Laboratory 5830 University Research Court College Park, MD 20740 March 2002 EDAS ARCHIVE ACCESS The EDAS archive may be accessed by a ftp client or by a web browser:1) If you want to use a ftp client, Windows PC users may use WinSCP, FileZilla, etc. that support passive mode. MacOS and Linux users may use the ftp command. Connect your ftp client to ftp.arl.noaa.gov using anonymous and your email address for the username and password, respectively and change directory to /archives/edas. Note if you are using multiple ftp connections, limit the number of concurrent connections equal to or less than two. Otherwise, your access to our ftp server may be blocked off. 2) If you are using a web browser, point it to https://www.ready.noaa.gov/data/archives/edas. It may take a few minutes or longer for the webpage to display. OVERVIEW The National Weather Service's National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) runs a series of computer analyses and forecasts operationally. One of the operational systems is the EDAS (Eta Data Assimilation System), covering the U.S. Addition current information on this model can be found on NCEP’s website ( https://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/products/ ). At NOAA's Air Resources Laboratory (ARL), NCEP model data are used for air quality transport and dispersion modeling. ARL archives both EDAS and FNL data using a 1-byte packing routine. Both archives contain basic fields such as the u- and v-wind components, temperature, and humidity. However, the archives differ from each other because of the horizontal and vertical resolution, as well as in the specific fields, provided by NCEP. ORIGIN OF THE DATA The 3-hourly archive data come from NCEP's EDAS. (Note: information here may not be up to date. Check the NCEP website for current information.) The EDAS was implemented into the operational early Eta model runs during 1995. The EDAS is an intermittent assimilation system consisting of successive 3-h Eta model forecasts and Optimum Interpolation (OI) analyses for a pre-forecast period (12-h for the early Eta) on a 38 level, 48 km grid. A 6-h forecast from the GDAS is used to to start the assimilation at 12-h prior to model start time. The following is a schematic for the 12Z cycle 6-h GDAS | 3-h eta | 3-h eta | 3-h eta | 3-h eta | 48-h Eta ---------------> |-------->|-------->|-------->|-------->|------------------....--> Forecast | fcst | fcst | fcst | fcst | forecast 00Z 03Z 06Z 09Z 12Z where; | | = Eta OI analysis | The 3-h analysis updates allow for the use of high frequency observations, such as wind profiler, NEXRAD, and aircraft data. ARL saves the successive 3-hour analyses, twice each day to produce a continuous data archive. Some fields such as precipitation and surface fluxes are not available in the analysis files, therefore these are taken from the successive 3-hour forecast files. The 48 km data are interpolated to a 40 km, Lambert Conformal Grid, covering the continental United States. ARL PROCESSING The ARL archiving program extracts every other grid point of the 3 hourly, 40 km data to produce a 3 hourly, 80 km dataset on pressure surfaces (note that we do NOT interpolate the data before or after data extraction). In addition, 14 gridpoints on the western end of the model domain and 10 gridpoints on the northern end of the domain are removed to reduce the size of the semi-monthly files (currently at about 84 Mbytes). The data are put into semi-monthly files and sent to NCDC. In addition, all of the EDAS data is available online at ARL’s web site (archives.php) for easy access via ftp. DATA DESCRIPTION The archive data file contains the data in synoptic time sequence, without any missing records (missing data is represented by nulls and the forecast hour is set to negative 1). Therefore it is possible to position randomly to any point within a data file. Each file contains data for approximately two weeks: days one through 15, and 16 through the end of the month. At each time period, an index record is always the first record, followed by surface data, and then all data in each pressure level from the ground up. Cartridge Specifications Originally, two files containing data for one month, were archived on a 3480 cartridge and sent to NCDC.. The files were copied to a cartridge with the UNIX "dd" command. TYPE 3480 cartridge, ASCII* RECORD LENGTH 30475 BLOCK SIZE 30475 * Note that each data record is composed of a 50-character header in ASCII, followed by the binary packed data. Therefore, an ASCII-EBCDIC conversion on the entire data record or cartridge file is not possible. EDAS data are available in the files called edas.subgrd.mmmyy.00#, where mmm is the month (e.g. jul) and yy is the year (97) and 00# refer to: 00#=001 - days 1-15 of the month 00#=002 - rest of the month NCDC can be reached at:
National Climatic Data Center Federal Building 151 Patton Avenue Asheville, NC 28801-5001
Email: questions@nvds.noaa.gov Phone: 828-271-4800 Fax: 828-271-4876 www: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov
Data Grid The data are on a 79 by 55 Lambert Conformal grid (Fig. 1). In Table 1, the data grid is identified by the model that produced the data, a grid identification number, the number of X and Y grid points, the Pole position (latitude and longitude) of the grid projection, a reference latitude and longitude, the grid spacing (km) which is true at the reference point, the orientation with respect to the reference longitude, the angle between the axis and the cone, and a point on the grid in grid units and latitude and longitude . The given pole position results in the lowest left grid point to have a value of (1,1). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Table 1. Data Grid Specifications ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Model ID X Y Pole Pole Ref. Ref. Ref. Orient Cone Sync Sync Sync Sync Type # Max Max Lat. Lon. Lat. Lon. Grid Ang. X Y Lat. Lon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EDAS 38 79 55 90N 0W 35N 95W 80 0 25 39.5 25.5 35N 95W ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table 2. Meteorological Fields contained in the EDAS Archive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Field Units Label Data Order ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pressure reduced to mean sea level hPa MSLP S1 Temperature at surface K TMPS S2 Accumulated precipitation (3 h accumulation) m TPP3 S3 Accumulated convective precipitation (3 h accumulation) m CPP3 S4 Volumetric soil moisture content frac. SOLW S5 Temperature at 2m AGL K T02M S6 Relative Humidity at 2m AGL % RH2M S7 U-component of wind at 10 m AGL m/s U10M S8 V-component of wind at 10 m AGL m/s V10M S9 Pressure at surface hPa PRSS S10 Categorial snow (yes=1, no=0) - CSNO S11 Categorial rain (yes=1, no=0) - CRAI S12 Latent heat net flux at surface W/m2 LHTF S13 Sensible heat net flux at surface W/m2 SHTF S14 Friction velocity m/s USTR S15 Visibility m VSBY S16 Low cloud cover % LCLD S17 Medium cloud cover % MCLD S18 High cloud cover % HCLD S19 Total cloud cover % TCLD S20 Downward short wave radiation flux W/m2 DSWF S21 U-component of wind with respect to grid m/s UWND U1 V-component of wind with respect to grid m/s VWND U2 Geopotential height gpm* HGTS U3 Temperature K TEMP U4 Pressure vertical velocity hPa/s WWND U5 Relative humidity % RELH U6 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * geopotential meters ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meteorological Fields and Vertical Structure The archived data files contain only some of the fields normally produced by the model at NCEP. These were selected according to what is most relevant for transport and dispersion studies and disk space limitations. In Table 2, the fields are identified by a description, the units, and a unique four character identification label that is written to the header label (see Data Grid Unpacking Procedure in a later section) of each record. Data order in the file is given by a two digit code. The first digit indicates if it is a surface (or single) level variable (S) or an upper level variable (U). The second digit indicates the order in which that variable appears in the file. The upper level EDAS data are output on the following 22 pressure surfaces. Table 3 gives the level number corresponding to each data level, which is also written to each header label. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Table 3. Description of Vertical Levels ------------------------------------------------------------------- Level Height ------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 50 hPa 21 100 hPa 20 150 hPa 19 200 hPa 18 250 hPa 17 300 hPa 16 400 hPa 15 500 hPa 14 550 hPa 13 600 hPa 12 650 hPa 11 700 hPa 10 750 hPa 9 800 hPa 8 825 hPa 7 850 hPa 6 875 hPa 5 900 hPa 4 925 hPa 3 950 hPa 2 975 hPa 1 1000 hPa 0 surface ------------------------------------------------------------------- Missing Data Missing data are written as an array of nulls (‘ ’) with a forecast hour of -1 in the header label. The associated field label is defined as "NULL". Definition File The definition file given in Appendix A summarizes the grid specifications and data fields. The format is such that the first 20 characters are the dummy ID field followed by the data. Much of the information is written into the index record of each time period. Record 1 consists of a four character string that identifies the source of the meteorological data. Record 2 is the integer identification of the meteorological data grid (Table 1). Record 3 is an integer number that identifies the vertical coordinate system. Only four coordinate types are recognized: 1-pressure sigma; 2-pressure absolute; 3-terrain sigma; 4-hybrid sigma. Records 4 & 5 identifies the pole position of the grid projection. Most projections will either be defined at +90 or -90 depending upon the hemisphere. The longitude would be the point 180 degrees from which the projection is cut. Records 6 & 7 is the reference position at which the grid spacing is defined. Record 8 is the grid spacing in km at the reference position. Record 9 is the grid orientation or the longitude of the meridian which is parallel to the up-down direction of the grid. Record 10 is the angle between the axis and the surface of the cone. For regular projections it is equal to the latitude at which the grid is tangent to the earth's surface. A polar stereographic grid would be tangent at either 90 or -90, while a Mercator projection is tangent at 0 latitude. A Lambert Conformal projection would be in between the two limits. An oblique stereographic projection would have a cone angle of 90.
Records 11 & 12 are used to equate a position on the grid with a position on the earth as given in Records 13 & 14. Any position is acceptable. It need not even be on the grid.
Record 15 is not currently used. Records 16 & 17 identify the number of grid points in each direction. Record 18 is the number of levels in the vertical, including the surface level. Record 19, through the number of levels, identifies the height of each level in appropriate units according the definition of the vertical coordinate, the number of variables at that level, and the four character identification string for each variable. The height coordinate is as follows for each type of vertical coordinate: 1-sigma (fraction); 2-pressure (mb); 3-terrain (fraction); 4-hybrid (mb-offset.fraction) Index (INDX) record - first record of each time period The key to reading the meteorological files is decoding the ASCII index record, the first record of each time period. The first 50 characters of the index record contain the same "header" information as do the other records in the given time period. The four-character label is "INDX". The format for this record is given below. Complete descriptions are similar to the variables in the discussion above of the Definition File. Format of the Index Record A4 Data Source I3 Forecast hour I2 Minutes associated with data time 12F7. 1) Pole Lat, 2) Pole Long, 3) Tangent Lat, 4) Tangent Long, 5) Grid Size, 6) Orientation, 7) Cone Angle, 8) X-Synch pnt, 9) Y-Synch pnt, 10) Synch pnt lat, 11) Synch pnt long, 12) Reserved 3I3 1) Numb x pnts, 2) Numb y pnts, 3) Numb levels I2 Vertical coordinate system flag I4 Length in bytes of the index record, excluding the first 50 bytes LOOP ===> number of data levels F6. height of the first level I2 number of variables at that level LOOP ===> number of variables A4 variable identification I3 rotating checksum of the packed data 1X Reserved space for future use END LEVEL AND VARIABLE LOOPS
Data Grid Unpacking NCEP typically saves their model output in GRIB format. However, at ARL the data are stored in a more compact form and can be directly used on a variety of computing platforms with direct access I/O. The data array is packed and stored into one-byte characters. To preserve as much data precision as possible, the difference between adjacent grid point’s values is saved and packed rather than the actual values. The grid is then reconstructed by adding the differences between grid values starting with the first value, which is stored in unpacked ASCII form in the header record at grid point (1,1). To illustrate the process, assume that a grid of real data, R, of dimensions i,j is given by the below example. 1,j 2,j .... i-1,j i,j 1,j-1 2,j-1 .... i-1,j-1 i,j-1 .... .... .... .... .... 1,2 2,2 .... i-1,2 i,2 1,1 2,1 .... i-1,1 i,1 The packed value, P, is then given by Pi,j = (Ri,j - Ri-1,j)* (2**(7-N)), where the scaling exponent N = ln dRmax / ln 2 . The value of dRmax is the maximum difference between any two adjacent grid points for the entire array. It is computed from the differences along each i index holding j constant. The difference at index (1,j) is computed from index (1,j-1), and at 1,1 the difference is always zero. The packed values are one byte unsigned integers, where values from 0 to 126 represent -127 to -1, 127 represents zero, and values of 128 to 254 represent 1 to 127. Each record length is then equal in bytes to the number of array elements plus 50 bytes for the header label information. The 50 byte label field precedes each packed data field and contains the following ASCII data: Field Format Description Year I2 Greenwich date for which data valid Month I2 " Day I2 " Hour I2 " Forecast* I2 Hours forecast, zero for analysis Level I2 Level from the surface up (see Table 3) Grid I2 Grid identification (see Table 1) Variable A4 Variable label (see Table 2) Exponent I4 Scaling exponent needed for unpacking Precision E14.7 Precision of unpacked data Value 1,1 E14.7 Unpacked data value at grid point 1,1
*Forecast hour is -1 for missing data. Sample Program A sample FORTRAN90 program is available from the ARL ftp server ( ftp://ftp.arl.noaa.gov/pub/archives/utility/chk_data.f ) that can be used to unpack and read the first few elements of the data array for each record of an ARL packed meteorological file. Appendix A. Definition File - EDAS.CFG MODEL TYPE: EDAS GRID NUMB: 38 VERT COORD: 2 POLE LAT: 90. POLE LON: 0. REF LAT: 35. REF LON: -95. REF GRID: 80.0 ORIENTATION: 0. CONE ANGLE: 25. SYNC X: 39.0 SYNC Y: 25.0 SYNC LAT: 35. SYNC LON: -95. SPECIAL: 0. NUMB X: 79 NUMB Y: 55 NUMB LEVELS: 23 LEVEL 1: 0. 21 MSLP TMPS TPP3 CPP3 SOLW T02M RH2M U10M V10M PRSS CSNO CRAI LHTF SHTF USTR VSBY LCLD MCLD HCLD TCLD DSWF LEVEL 2: 1000. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 3: 975. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 4: 950. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 5: 925. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 6: 900. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 7: 875. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 8: 850. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 9: 825. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 10: 800. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 11: 750. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 12: 700. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 13: 650. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 14: 600. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 15: 550. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 16: 500. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 17: 400. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 18: 300. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 19: 250. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 20: 200. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 21: 150. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 22: 100. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH LEVEL 23: 50. 06 UWND VWND HGTS TEMP WWND RELH |
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