ICOADS: Plans and Prospects for Improvements

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ICOADS Plans and Prospects for Improvements

• Scott D. Woodruff, NOAA/ESRL USA
• Steven J. Worley, NCAR USA
• Richard W. Reynolds NOAA/NCDC USA

MARCDAT-II UK Met Office, Exeter 17-20 October
2005
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Topics

• Make regular updates
• Digitize blend new data
• Resolve data/QC problems
• Integrate data metadata
• Transition to IMMA format
• Leverage JCOMM ETMC

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Regular updatesRelease 2.2 1784-2004
DM
RT?

• NCEP BUFR original GTS string
• NCDC GTS still under development
• redundancy important
• annual updates eventually monthly

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ocean/coastal coverage per variable
(fr Worley et al. 2005, IJC)
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FM 18-XII BUOY
suppl.
GTS TAO/TRITON PIRATA blue decoded
RH
temp, salinity, current
QC/technical, e.g., anemometer height type
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2. Digitize blend new data

• New initiative
• RECovery of Logbooks And International Marine
  data (RECLAIM)
• E.g., UK (5 tapped)
• CDMP UK funding?

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Blend candidatesred (undigitized), yellow
(partly), green (fully)
est. resources gt3 person-years translation
blending
Auxiliary
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CLIWOC US Maury

• Impact of Brussels 1853

• Sub-daily obs cost benefit issues to key,
  especially lt 1853

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USN Sub Devilfish, 1945hourly water injection
temps
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Resolve data problems QC

• Trimming problems (Wolter, 1997)
• Undetected duplicates (Ansell, Compo)
• US Maury SLP biases (Ansell) 1gravity, 2
  temp correction (attm T)

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3. Integrate data metadata

• WMO No. 47 ship characteristics
• Already blended 1973-2004
• 1955-72 late 2005? (few call signs lt1966)
• ODAS (buoys, etc.) JCOMM center
• Work proposed to gather historical
• E.g., records stored at NDBC (Katrina)
• Climate-quality products
• adj., e.g., for platform height

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Early historical UK ship metadata(mostly from
reference books Clive Wilkinson)

• Ship name, tonnage, dimensions
• Type of vessel
• No. of guns
• Propulsion
• Instruments - from logbooks
• Also proprietary info Lloyds, etc.

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US Maury obs made
Fr Woodruff et al. (2005) Early ship
observational data and ICOADS. Climatic Change,
73, issue 1-2, 169-194 (in special issue for
CLIWOC, appearing shortly)

• Major improvement possible translation of wind
  force text terms into Beaufort numbers
• CLIWOC dictionary KNMI

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4. Transition to IMMA

• Flexibility to store historical modern
• ASCII software independent
• contrast netCDF, DBMS, BUFR
• Strength archival (w/ similar contrasts)
• Need for international format for historical
  exchange (JCOMM)
• simple enough for individual countries

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IMMA record types
core
(core optional attms)
core
icoads
immt2
meta
Key for archival attm of complete original
(suppl.) data
core
suppl.
. . .

• R2.2 suppl. not yet available before 1980
• Conversion of abbreviated LMRF to IMMA
• E.g., sea ice obs from TDF-11, FOSDIC
• Plus e.g., TDF-11 not fully attm to LMR

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JCOMM Expert Team on Marine Climatology (ETMC)

• Bob Keeley DM PA
• New focus
• Among possible tasks
• IMMA format adoption
• Knitting surface marine together with
• Oceanographic (e.g., near sfc)
• Sea ice

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JCOMM Structure(Adopted at JCOMM-II, Halifax,
Sep. 2005)
incl. TAO/TRITON and PIRATA issues with DM vs.
GTS
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Conclusions
Timely availability of data, metadata, products
Early EU archives (esp. UK) many data metadata
But translation, blending, and data quality
resources
IMMA format key for permanent archival suppl.
data
International contributions vital
CLIMAR-III 3rd JCOMM Workshop on Advances in
Marine ClimatologyPlanned for 2007 Location?