Operational Surface Analysis Data Set

Atmospheric Model

Surface analysis

Pressure level analysis

Model level analysis

Isentropic level analysis

Potential vorticity level analysis

Surface first guess

Pressure level first guess

Model level first guess

Surface forecast

Pressure level forecast

Model level forecast

Isentropic level forecast

Potential vorticity level forecast

Description :

period supported - 1 January 1985 to current date;
fields are uninitialised analyses for 0000 UTC, 0600 UTC, 1200 UTC and 1800 UTC each day;
each parameter is stored as a field of grid point values, in latitude rows starting at the north and working southwards; within each row values run from west to east starting at the 0° meridian;
data are stored in FM 92 GRIB using sufficient bits to ensure that the values represented can be retrieved to an accuracy consistent with the analysis method used;

The changes to this data set are as follows:

1 January 1985	Internal data representation is a regular N48 Gaussian grid (48 lines of latitude between the pole and the equator for each hemisphere, with a regular spacing of 1.875° between points along each latitude row) Fields available are surface pressure, snow depth, MSL pressure, total cloud cover, u- and v-components of wind at 10m, 2 metre temperature, 2 metre dewpoint temperature, surface temperature, deep soil temperature, surface soil wetness, deep soil wetness
1 May 1985	Internal data representation is a regular N80 Gaussian grid (80 lines, with 1.125° between points along each row)
15 July 1986	Fields added are surface geopotential, land sea mask, surface roughness, albedo, low cloud cover, medium cloud cover, high cloud cover, climatological deep soil temperature, climatological deep soil wetness
7 April 1987	Field added is skin reservoir content
17 September 1991	Internal data representation is a N160 Quasi-regular Gaussian grid (160 lines with varying numbers of points along each row)
4 August 1993	Fields added are log of surface roughness for heat, skin temperature Surface temperature, deep soil temperature, climatological deep soil temperature replaced by soil temperature levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 Surface soil wetness, deep soil wetness, climatological deep soil wetness replaced by soil wetness levels 1, 2, 3 and 4
23 August 1994	Field added is total column water vapour
4 April 1995	Fields added are total column water, standard deviation of orography, anisotropy of subgrid scale orography, angle of subgrid scale orography, slope of subgrid scale orography
29 June 1998	Field added is surface stress/Charnock
27 June 2000	Fields added are low vegetation cover, high vegetation cover, type of low vegetation, type of high vegetation, sea ice cover, snow albedo, snow density, sea surface temperature, temperature of snow layer, ice surface temperature layers 1, 2, 3 and 4 Soil wetness levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 replaced by volumetric soil wetness layers 1, 2, 3 and 4
12 September 2000	Field added is total column ozone; The ozone field is not currently based on any assimilated ozon data. Model deficiencies result in a serious overestimation of ozone in springtime at high latitudes.
21 November 2000	Internal data representation is a N256 Quasi-regular Gaussian grid (256 lines between the pole and the equator, with varying numbers of points along each row)
12 June 2001	The model's ozone chemistry is improved in its representation of ozone loss by hetereogeneous processes that leads to the springtime ozone hole over the Antarctic
9 April 2002	SBUV and GOME data are now assimilated to improve the ozone field.
1 February 2006	Internal data representation is a N400 Quasi-regular Gaussian grid (400 lines between the pole and the equator, with varying numbers of points along each row).

Order forms :

If you wish to make an order from this data set please download the following two Acrobat (PDF) files :

1. Instructions and Standard Order forms (common for all data sets):

24 KB

2. Data Set Order form (to select data from this specific data set only) :

8 KB

26.01.2006