Johnson Research Group

The Monsoon and Mesoscale Dynamics Research Group at CSU has been maintaining datasets for nearly three decades from various monsoon and tropical field experiments. Specific field campaigns for which data exist at CSU include the following:

GATE (1974)

WMONEX (1978)

TOGA COARE (1992-1993)

SCSMEX (1998)

NAME (2004)

TIMREX (2008)

SOWMEX (2009)

DYNAMO (2011-12)

Access to all of these datasets, except for GATE and WMONEX, is currently available. Work is underway in collaboration with NCAR to identify additional datasets from past field programs that should be archived and made accessible before they are lost forever.

The component of field program datasets that tends to have the greatest long-term value to the scientific community is the vertical profile represented by atmospheric sounding data. These observations are used most commonly for diagnostic studies and for the development of cloud parameterizations for climate models. There is currently no central location for access to all research-quality sounding data from past monsoon and tropical field experiments. NCAR has holdings from some past experiments, but the collections are by no means complete. Because our CSU group has received funding for the last five of the experiments in the above list, we have made these data publicly available and currently respond to many requests each year for data. CSU will continue to provide this service even though the time period for many of these experiments has long passed. However, for the long term, it is important to arrange for permanent data centers to receive redundant copies of the data to ensure longevity of these important monsoon and tropical datasets.