Operations Updates
ARM Climate Research Facility Operations Update - October 15, 2004
This bimonthly report provides a brief summary of significant accomplishments and activities in the operations area of the ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF).
Data Quality Application Gives Data Browsers a New View
Plot Browser, now available through the Data Quality Health and Status (DQ HandS) program, eases viewing by providing lists or thumbnail images of selected data streams. Click to view a larger version of the image.
ACRF's Data Quality Office has developed a new way to help data quality analysts, instrument mentors, and site scientists quickly and easily view diagnostic data quality plots, without making multiple selections to see just one plot. The new Plot Browser is a part of the Data Quality Health and Status (DQ HandS) application, which also automatically generates color-coded tables of data quality control checks on both a daily and an hourly basis in near real-time. The new view works with all the daily plots (around a 1,000 per day) from the ACRF sites to produce custom, highly-browsable lists or thumbnail images of data streams suitable for monitoring data quality.
By using DQ HandS and the Plot Browser to perform visual data quality inspections, the Data Quality Office can inspect and assess ARM data on a near real-time basis (daily to weekly) and submit requests to site operators to initiate troubleshooting and/or corrective maintenance activities, if needed. By comparing data streams from different instruments, the quality of the data is assessed based on guidelines developed by instrument mentors. If a problem is identified, mentors, site operators, and site scientists are notified to start the problem resolution process and/or continue to investigate. This level of vigilance helps the ACRF deliver data streams of reasonable quality to the scientific community.
Radiosonde Data Distribution In Place for Modeling During M-PACE
An M-PACE researcher launches a radiosonde at Oliktok Point. Several launch periods, spanning at least 5 days each with 4 launches per day, are planned for all four experimental sites (Barrow, Oliktok Point, Atqasuk and Toolik Lake).
During the Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment (M-PACE), taking place in October 2004 at the ACRF North Slope of Alaska (NSA) locale, radiosonde systems are being deployed at Atqasuk, Toolik Lake, and Oliktok Point. Critical to the success of the experiment is the ability to transmit radiosonde data—as well as routine data from the NSA site in Barrow—to the Global Telecommunications System (GTS), with minimal delay after completion of the sounding. On October 7, with only a few weeks advance notice, ACRF data coordination staff completed the necessary revisions to the radiosonde data collection software to enable distribution to GTS via a server—or gateway—sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This allows the data to be used near real time in forecasting models used during the experiment.
GTS is the World Meteorological Organization integrated network of point-to-point circuits and multi-point circuits which interconnect meteorological telecommunication centers. Its purpose is to enable an efficient exchange of meteorological data and products in a timely and reliable way to meet the needs of world, regional and national meteorological centers. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting—reknown for its forecasting models—acquires the data from the GTS and integrates it into some of their modeling products. Researchers involved in M-PACE are using these modeling products to plan aircraft operations for cloud and atmospheric sampling during the campaign.
Based upon this recent success, ACRF data coordination staff plan to distribute radiosonde data from the Manus and Nauru sites at the ACRF Tropical Western Pacific locale through the NOAA gateway in the future.
