Internet Upgrade Speeds Data Transfer from Tropics
In October 2008, a new higher-speed internet connection was hooked up for the ACRF site in Darwin, Australia, at no extra cost. This upgrade enables spectral data—the base for determining reflectivity, vertical velocity, and spectral width—obtained by the millimeter wave cloud radar (MMCR) to be transmitted via Internet, thereby eliminating the need to ship hard disks across the globe to the ACRF Data Archive at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In addition to the efficiency and costs savings of Internet data transfer, the increased bandwidth has improved Internet communications and email performance for all three of the ACRF Tropical Western Pacific sites that use the server in Darwin.
Each MMCR generates huge volumes of data—approximately 600 megabytes per hour. Since the installation of the radar at the Darwin site in 1999, these data were recorded onto disks and shipped to the Archive approximately every two weeks. The MMCR data currently accounts for more than 30 percent of the total volume at the ACRF Data Archive, and dealing with such a large volume of disks is labor intensive. The seemingly minor Internet upgrade at the TWP has resulted in a great improvement to site operations and communications capability. In addition, transferring the data over the Internet is much more secure and reliable due to the decreased risk of lost or damaged disks during shipment. Based on these results, Darwin site operations staff are investigating the possibility of using the same method to transmit external data sets provided through the Australian Bureau of Meteorology instrumentation, which also requires mailing of hard drives.
