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Radiosonde data

The data in this directory was collected from the GTS. It is available for use by the community. If you use it, please contact us to let us know. In return, we ask for an acknowledgment in any papers written, in a form similar to:

	"Radiosonde data from Antarctic stations from the 
	database of Connolley and King (1993) was provided
	by W. M. Connolley at the British Antarctic Survey, 
	http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/data/wmc-radiosonde-export/."

The appropriate citation is:

  	Connolley, W.M. and J.C. King. 1993. 
	Atmospheric water-vapour transport to Antarctica inferred from radiosonde data.
	Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc. 119, 325-342. 

[Additional data from CLIMAT TEMPs]

Data sources

Files and Formats

The data files are text files gzipped to save space. The perl script station.pl may be used for further processing.

The files are a succession of ascents, one following to the next. Each ascent is four header lines, then the data levels:

identyymmddhh
  100nl
  lat lon 0 hour day month year sector 0
    sfcp

    pressure height temperature dewtemperature winddir windspeed qc

Note that lat, lon, sector and qc are always present but usually zero or null coded. The missing data value is -9999 (integer) and -9999.0 (real).

For example:

8900180010100
  10015
  0.0000000E+00  0.0000000E+00      0      0      1      1     80   1073      0
    985
    985          52   270.3000       269.7000      -9999  -9999     98
...13 lines removed...
      2       -9999   239.1000      -9999.000      -9999  -9999     98
8900180010200
...file continues...

The units are:

	Temperature (+dewt):	K
	Wind speed:		M/S
	Direction:		Degrees
	Height:			M
	Pressure:		HPA

The files are listed as follows. Note that if they are picked up by netscape (at least with my configuration) the default save name will be "yy.mm.txt" (ie without the .gz suffix), but the files will still be gzipped.

80.01.txt.gz
80.02.txt.gz
80.03.txt.gz
80.04.txt.gz
80.05.txt.gz
80.06.txt.gz
80.07.txt.gz
80.08.txt.gz
80.09.txt.gz
80.10.txt.gz
80.11.txt.gz
80.12.txt.gz

81.01.txt.gz
81.02.txt.gz
81.03.txt.gz
81.04.txt.gz
81.05.txt.gz
81.06.txt.gz
81.07.txt.gz
81.08.txt.gz
81.09.txt.gz
81.10.txt.gz
81.11.txt.gz
81.12.txt.gz

82.01.txt.gz
82.02.txt.gz
82.03.txt.gz
82.04.txt.gz
82.05.txt.gz
82.06.txt.gz
82.07.txt.gz
82.08.txt.gz
82.09.txt.gz
82.10.txt.gz
82.11.txt.gz
82.12.txt.gz

88.01.txt.gz
88.02.txt.gz
88.03.txt.gz
88.04.txt.gz
88.05.txt.gz
88.06.txt.gz
88.07.txt.gz
88.08.txt.gz
88.09.txt.gz
88.10.txt.gz
88.11.txt.gz
88.12.txt.gz

89.01.txt.gz
89.02.txt.gz
89.03.txt.gz
89.04.txt.gz
89.05.txt.gz
89.06.txt.gz
89.07.txt.gz
89.08.txt.gz
89.09.txt.gz
89.10.txt.gz
89.11.txt.gz
89.12.txt.gz

90.01.txt.gz
90.02.txt.gz
90.03.txt.gz
90.04.txt.gz
90.05.txt.gz
90.06.txt.gz
90.07.txt.gz
90.08.txt.gz
90.09.txt.gz
90.10.txt.gz
90.11.txt.gz
90.12.txt.gz