NODC All of NOAA

Sea Level CD-ROMs
Introduction

The Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Sea Level Center at the University of Hawaii has received hourly data from regional and national sea level networks primarily within the tropics operated by various agencies. Over 55 agencies representing 69 countries have generously contributed. The objective is to prepare a scientifically valid, well-documented archive of hourly, daily, and monthly sea level values in standardized formats. These data are annually submitted to the World Data Center for Oceanography (WDC), Silver Spring, and the monthly values are provided to the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level. This CD-ROM contains the holdings of the WDC as of July 1994, which consists of 289 stations with 3424 station-years of quality assured data. The series are of variable lengths with the greatest concentration between 5 and 30 years, although a few sites have over 70 years.

CD-ROM Contents:

The information on the CD-ROM is organized in a directory tree. Subdirectories are created for each ocean within which subdirectories are allocated for the hourly, daily, monthly, and assessment files as shown below:


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Organization of Informartion In a Directory Tree in the CD-ROM

File/Directoy	Description
/	root directory
READ.ME . .	"file describing organization of the CDROM and convention for file names."
inventory.lis . .	"list of site_id, lat, lon, ocean, and time-span"
report.ps	"post-script file of 1994 data holdings report"
figs_col.ps .	"post-script file of figures for color printer"
hourly.fmt	"format description hourly"
daily.fmt	"format description daily"
monthly.fmt	"format description monthly"
policy.dmt . .	"quality control and assessment policy"
pacific.lis . .	"inventory of Pacific Ocean sites"
/pacific/hourly	"subdirectory for hourly values"
/pacific/daily	"subdirectory for daily values"
/pacific/monthly	"subdirectory for monthly values"
/pacific/assess . .	"quality assessments and station info"
/indian	"subdirectory for sites in Indian Ocean"
indian.lis	"inventory of Indian Ocean sites"
/indian/hourly	"subdirectory for hourly values"
/indian/daily	"subdirectory for daily values"
/indian/monthly	"subdirectory for monthly values "
/indian/assess	"quality assessments and station info"
/atlantic	"subdirectory for sites in Atlantic Ocean"
atlantic.lis	"inventory of Atlantic Ocean sites"
/atlantic/hourly	"subdirectory for hourly values"
/atlantic/daily	"subdirectory for daily values"
/atlantic/monthly	"subdirectory for monthly values"
/atlantic/assess	"quality assessments and station info"

1. Total Size of Data File: 205 Mbytes

   Hourly files: 189 Mbytes, Daily: 12 Mbytes, Monthly: 4 Mbytes

2. Data Format:
   
   The JASL archive format is used for this CD-ROM. The data files consist of fixed-length, 80-byte ASCII records. Each file contains a header and data records. In separate files, general information regarding the installation and the final assessment of data quality are provided for each series.

3. Descriptions of Formats:

   name	contents
   hourly.dmt	format description hourly
   daily.dmt	format description daily
   monthly.dmt	format description monthly

4. File Naming Convention:
   Data Files:

   name	contents
   msssv.dat	monthly data for site_id sss, series v
   dsssv.dat	daily data
   hsssvyy.dat	hourly data for year yy
   qasssv.dmt	quality assessment and station info

   The site_id is the Joint Archive for Sea Level (JASL) convention, which can be seen in the inventory list (file inventory.lis) that also includes country, latitude, longitude, oceanm, time-span, and completeness index.

   Some sites have more than one independent time segment, denoted by series v (a,b,c,etc.). The segments are independent because they are not linked to the same reference level.

5. Data Access

   Data access software has not been developed for this CD-ROM. The best way to access the data is to utilize the inventory lists (inventory.lis) which contains site locations, name, country, and various project IDs, the most important of which is the JASL ID which is embedded in the filenames.

Acknowledgement

This project is funded by the Office of Global Programs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with support from the Joint Archive for Sea Level, which is a cooperative effort between the US National Oceanographic Data Center and the University of Hawaii Sea Level Center. If these data are used for publication, please acknowledge that the data were provided by the International TOGA Sea Level Center.

For questions about the data, contact:

Mr. Patrick Caldwell
Data Manager - Joint Archive for Sea Level
University of Hawaii Sea Level Center
Marine Science Branch
1000 Pope Rd., Rm 316
Honolulu, Hawaii 94816 USA

E-mail: Patrick.Caldwell@noaa.gov
Telex:  6502478678 (use mainland U.S. access code)
Fax:  808-956-2352 or 808-956-4104
Office Phone:  808-956-4105