U.S. Dept of Commerce/NOAA/PMEL/TAO
TAO Data Selection Help and Terminology
Data selection procedure
- Use the clickable maps, type-in boxes and pull-down menus to specify your desired selection criteria (spatial or temporal, etc).
- Click on the [SELECT] button to start the searching process.
- All the selection criteria are optional.
- If you do not specify
any selection criteria, then all data will be selected (potentially
tens of thousands of data files).
- The results of the search will be a scrolling list of
data files which met the selection criteria. From this
scrolling list, you can select a data file for plotting, listing
or downloading.
TAO data selection terminology
TAO data types fall into three categories. Note: Only Time Series are accessible here
- Time Series Data Types - One dimensional data files
indexed by time,
such as those collected by instruments such as an anemometor,
a current meter or a thermistor on a moored buoy.
Select or locate
data by specifying one or more of the following selection
criteria. Any of the criteria can be ignored. If no
criteria are specified, then all data in the database will
be selected, potentially tens of thousands of data files (not
recommended).
-
Longitude range - to specify a range of of longitudes,
enter the Westernmost and Easternmost longitudes as numbers
between -180 and + 180. West is negative and East is positive.
- e.g., -110.5 is 110.5 degress West longitude,
near the West coast
of South America, 137 is 137 degrees East longitude, near
the East coast of Indonesia, both in the Pacific Ocean.
Longitudes can also be entered with E or W to indicate
the hemisphere. - e.g., 110W, 110w, 110 W,
110 w and -110
are equivalent ways of specifying 110W, and 137E, 137e, 137 E,
137 e, and 137 are equivalent ways of specifying 137 degrees East
longitude.
-
Latitude range - to specify a range of latitudes, enter
two latitudes as numbers between -90 and 90. South is negative
and North is positive.
- e.g., -10.5 is 10.5 degrees South latitude,
and 10 is 10 degrees North latitude.
Latitudes can also be entered with N or S to indicate hemisphere.
- e.g., 10.5S, 10.5s, 10.5 S, 10.5 s, and -10.5 are
equivalent ways of entering 10.5 degrees South latitude.
- Date range - All data files which contain some data inside the specified time range will be selected.
-
Depth range - Depths in the ocean are entered as
positive numbers, increasing downwards towards the
bottom of the ocean. The surface of the ocean is 0, and 6000 meters
deep in the ocean is 6000.
- For time series data, any time series from an instrument inside the specified
depth range will be selected.
-
Month sub-range - If you have selected a multi-year date range, and you only want to choose data within
certain months, i.e., the Northern hemisphere summer
(Jun-Aug), then enter the subset of months to be searched.
-
Delta-t is the time interval between data points
in Time-Series files. Select one of the values shown.
-
String(s) to locate in Filename - This search criteria is
included for the convenience of scientists familiar with the
TAO data files. File names often contain identifying information,
such as Cruise identification for CTD data. This search criteria
allows selection of data based on this identifying informaton.
Enter one or more character strings, separated by
spaces. Data with file names containing all the specified
character strings will be selected.
Start the search by pressing the [Select] button (near
the bottom of the screen).
Once data are selected, there are options for the individual
time series, and other options for the entire set of
selected data files.
For a test or demonstration, try the following selection criteria
(Longitude range 130E to 90W and latitude range 10S to 10N):
- Data Type: Zonal Current
- Longitude range: Westernmost = 130E and Easternmost = 90W
- Latitude range: Northmost = 10S and Southmost = 10N
- Time range: Jan 1 1980 - Dec 31 1997
- Click "Select" at the bottom of the page
- Click "GO" at the bottom of the page
- --> Modify time range if desired. Click "Go" to make a time series plot
Go to the
TAO Home Page
dai@pmel.noaa.gov