FY 1980

METLIB—a program library for calculating and plotting marine boundary layer wind fields

Overland, J.E., R.A. Brown, and C.D. Mobley

NOAA Tech. Memo. ERL PMEL-20, NTIS: PB81-141038, 82 pp (1980)

METLIB is a FORTRAN program library for deriving earth-located time series of geostrophic, gradient, or surface winds from sea level pressure (SLP) and ancillary fields gridded on a polar stereographic projection. Such fields are generated at the National Meteorological Center (NMC) and at Fleet Numerical Oceanographic Central (FNOC). They can also be generated by digitizing SLP charts analyzed manually. The library also contains programs for contouring scalars, such as SLP or wind speed, and for plotting vector arrows with map background. Plotting is based upon the NCAR graphics routines. A major advantage to the library is that spherical geometric calculations involving polar stereographic grids are internal to the programs. The relationship between gradient wind and surface wind can be assigned from speed reduction and turning angle constants or by a baroclinic, stability-dependent, single point boundary layer model.