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The mission of this DAC is to collect, check, archive, and distribute all (underway) surface meteorology data from international WOCE vessels and moored and drifting buoys. This especially includes data from automated meteorology platforms such as IMET or Multimet systems which can record one minute means of wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, humidity, air temperature, sea temperature, and optional parameters such as precipitation and various radiation components. Much of these data are not transmitted over GTS nor are they making their way into various data archives (e.g. COADS). The data will be quality controlled through a series of statistical and graphical analyses tools. The data and metadata are then be made accessible through a wide variety of distribution media (e.g. electronic network, magnetic media, interactive requests, printed reports, etc.) to the WOCE community.
One of the anticipated uses of these data are comparisons of remotely-sensed winds and temperatures to the IMET and other surface meteorological data in order to assess the suitability of the satellite data to act as validation fields for WOCE numerical modelling efforts. The SAC for surface fluxes has taken a first step forward by estimating fields of surface meteorological variables including winds, temperatures, humidity, wind stress, and turbulent heat fluxes for the Indian ocean. A variational technique employing a variety of constraints including data misfit, climatological-kinematic, and empirical boundary layer flux formulations is applied to monthly COADS monthly summary information for 1960-1989 (Jones, C. S., et. al., 1995, The Global Atmosphere-Ocean System, 3, 249-272.).
Analysis of the fields over the 30 year period indicate seasonally varying shifts in some variables, e.g. latent heat flux, in the mid 1970's. The DAC will bring all collected data sets for Pacific cruises to the workshop along with a detailed listing of missing datasets. Various SAC products such as the various Florida State University monthly wind products and Indian ocean surface variable fields. Also, NCEP analyses for the Pacific will be available for workshop participants.
For more information, see our web page: http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/WOCE/.
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