============================================================================== Dataset: CSU-NAME upper-air and surface gridded analyses Version: 3.1 Release date: 23 Mar 2009 ============================================================================== General Description: ------------------- Analyzed fields (see list below) were produced on 1 degree latitude/longitude grids, 25 hPa vertical resolution (1000 to 50 hPa) using the multiquadric interpolation scheme of Nuss and Titley (1994). The upper-air analysis used V3 of the CSU QC'd sonde dataset, profiler wind data at the NAME ISS sites, and pibal soundings. V3.1 of this dataset contains humidity corrections to the upper-air data at all the sites in the NAME T1A domain as discussed in Ciesielski et al. (2009). Surface analysis used oceanic QuikSCAT winds at 00 and 12Z, and data from 157 surface sites of various types (including METAR reports from 83 sites, 13 HOBO recorders, 3 ISS sites, RV Altair, 9 Navy sites, 23 Sonoran agricultural sites, and 25 SMN automated sites). The surface winds were used to compute slope flows (i.e., vertical motion at the surface). A complete description of the NAME surface data can be found in Ciesielski and Johnson (2008). Version a of the dataset used no reanalysis data. Version b of the dataset used NCEP reanalysis data over data-sparse oceanic regions but not in the gulf of California. Version c of the dataset used NARR reanalysis data over data-sparse oceanic regions but not in the gulf of California. The NARR analysis used here is from a special reanalysis conducted by Kingtse Mo which used all sondes from the NAME enhanced sounding network and a special analysis of SSTs in the gulf -- see Mo et al. (2007) for more details. Analyses are available on three grids: ------------------------------------- (1) T2A (Tier 2 Array) * 15N-40N, 120W-90W * at 00 and 12 UTC * for 1 July thru 15 August, 2004 * each data file covers 1 day (2) T1A (Tier 1 Array) * 22N-35N, 115W-100W * at 00, 06, 12, and 18 UTC * for 7 July thru 15 August, 2004 * each data file covers 1 day (3) EBA (Enhanced Budget Array) * 23N-29N, 112W-102W * at 00, 04, 08, 12, 16, and 20 UTC (during an IOP) * for IOP's (Intensive Observing Periods) #2 through #9 during NAME * each data file covers 1 IOP Upper-air fields: ---------------- z geopotential height (m) t temperature (C) q water vapor mixing ratio (g/kg) u zonal wind (m/s) v meridional wind (m/s) Surface fields: -------------- t temperature (C) td dew point temperature (C) q water vapor mixing ratio (g/kg) u zonal wind (m/s) v meridional wind (m/s) ps surface pressure (mb) mslp mean sea level pressure (mb) Derived fields: -------------- w vertical p-velocity (mb/s) div divergence (1/s) vor vorticity (1/s) Q1 apparent heating (K/day) Q2 apparent drying (K/day) Notes: ----- (1) For upper-air fields, the first pressure level (labeled 1025 mb) contains the associated surface field. (2) A field is underground if the pressure level of the data is greater than the surface pressure (ps). (3) In V3 and above, surface winds were used to compute orographically forced vertical motion at the surface as in Luo and Yanai (1983). For this procedure, a smoothed version topography was used -- see Ciesielski and Johnson (2008) for details. (4) File format: netCDF self describing files See http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/ for more info. (5) To quickly examine a datafile: ncdump netcdf_filename | more (6) References for dataset (see below): Johnson et al. (2007) and Ciesielski et al.(2009). Contact information: ------------------- If any problems are noted in these datasets, please notify Paul Ciesielski (paulc@atmos.colostate.edu). History: ------------------ In creating the v2.0 the DADS algorithm (Haertel 2002), which corrects the winds and divergence for spurious divergence introduced by the objective analysis scheme, was erroneously applied only at land based points. In v2.1 the DADS algorithm was applied over all points. Also, a few additional NCEP data points were used west of Baja to improve the analysis in this region. V3.0 used Mike Douglass' pibal dataset for NAME and used a much improved surface dataset which had vertical motion at the surface computed from the surface winds. V3.1 used humidity corrected upper-air data at all sites in the T1A domain of NAME as described in Ciesielski et al. (2009). References: ---------- Ciesielski, P. E., and R. H. Johnson, 2008: Diurnal cycle of surface flows during 2004 NAME and comparison to model reanalysis. J. Climate, 21, 3890-3913. Ciesielski, P. E., R. H. Johnson, and J. Wang, 2009: Correction of humidity biases in Vaisala RS80-H sondes during NAME. J. Atmos. Ocean. Tech., To appear. Haertel, P., 2002: Spurious divergence within objective analyses with application to TOGA COARE heat and moisture budgets. 25th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, San Diego, CA. Johnson, R.H., P.E. Ciesielski, B.D. McNoldy, R.J.Rogers, and R.K.Taft, 2007: Multiscale variability of the flow during the North American Monsoon Experiment. J.Climate, 20, 1628-1648. Luo, H., and M. Yanai, 1983: The large-scale circulation and heat sources over the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding areas during the early summer of 1979. Part I: precipitation and kinematic analysis. Mon. Wea. Rev., 111, 922-944. Mo, K., E. Rogers, W. Ebisuzaki and R. W. Higgins, 2007: Influence of the North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME) 2004 enhanced soundings on NCEP operational analyses. J. Climate, 20, 1821-1842. Nuss, W. A., and D. W. Titley, 1994: Use of multiquadric interpolation for meteorological objective analysis. Mon. Wea. Rev., 122, 1611-1631.