TOVS Pathfinder Path-P Daily and Monthly Polar Gridded Atmospheric Parameters

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Entry ID

NSIDC-0027

Summary

The TIROS-N Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) Polar Pathfinder (Path-P) data set consists of gridded daily and monthly Arctic and Antarctic atmospheric data derived from various NOAA satellites. TOVS Path-P daily files are available for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres from 60 degrees poleward at 100 km gridded spatial resolution in an Equal-Area Scalable Earth Grid (EASE-Grid). TOVS Path-P monthly files are available for the Northern Hemisphere only from 60 degrees poleward at 100 km gridded spatial resolution in EASE-Grid. Daily and monthly Northern Hemisphere data are available from January 1979 through current processing, and daily Southern Hemisphere data are available from July 1979 through current processing. Data were created from a modified version of the Improved Initialization Inversion Algorithm (3I) (Chedin et al. 1985), a physical-statistical retrieval method improved for use in identifying geophysical variables in snow- and ice-covered areas (Francis 1994).

Variables retrieved from satellite-observed radiances for this product include atmospheric temperature, water vapor, skin surface temperature, total effective cloud fraction, cloud top pressure and temperature, solar zenith elevation, surface pressure, turning angle between geostrophic wind and surface stress over ice, emissivity, boundary layer stratification, and geostrophic drag coefficient. The algorithm used to generate these grids has been validated through comparisons with surface observations from the North Pole drifting meteorological stations (Schweiger et al. 1999).

The complete TOVS data set is available via FTP in Hierarchical Data Format (HDF). Users may also order subsets of the data for any of the parameters listed above or for specific spatial or temporal coverage.

Data users are encouraged to register before accessing the TOVS data. Registered users automatically receive release notes via e-mail containing notification of data manipulation or formatting modifications.

Data Set Citation

Dataset Creator: J. A. Francis and A. J. Schweiger
Dataset Title: TOVS Pathfinder Path-P Daily and Monthly Polar Gridded Atmospheric Parameters
Dataset Release Date: 1999-09-01updated 2008
Dataset Release Place: Boulder, Colorado USA
Dataset Publisher: NSIDC: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Online Resource: http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0027.html

Temporal Coverage

Start Date: 1979-01-01

Start Date: 1979-07-12

Data Resolution

Latitude Resolution: 100 km
Longitude Resolution: 100 km

Location Keywords

• GEOGRAPHIC REGION NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
• GEOGRAPHIC REGION SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

Science Keywords

• Atmosphere Atmospheric Radiation Emissivity
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Radiation Emissivity
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Temperature Air Temperature
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Temperature Air Temperature
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Temperature Skin Temperature
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Temperature Skin Temperature
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Temperature Surface Air Temperature
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Temperature Surface Air Temperature
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Water Vapor Precipitable Water
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Water Vapor Precipitable Water
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Winds Wind Stress Geostrophic Drag Coefficient
• Atmosphere Atmospheric Winds Wind Stress Geostrophic Drag Coefficient
• Atmosphere Clouds Cloud Amount/Frequency Effective Cloud Fraction
• Atmosphere Clouds Cloud Amount/Frequency Effective Cloud Fraction
• Atmosphere Clouds Cloud Top Pressure
• Atmosphere Clouds Cloud Top Pressure
• Atmosphere Clouds Cloud Top Temperature
• Atmosphere Clouds Cloud Top Temperature
• Oceans Ocean Winds Wind Stress
• Oceans Ocean Winds Wind Stress

Ancillary Keywords

• Atmospheric Stratification
• Boundary Layer
• Boundary Layer Stratification
• Cloud Fraction
• Cloud Properties
• Cloud Top Pressure
• Cloud Tops
• Cloud Top Temperature
• DAAC
• EOSDIS
• Geostrophic Drag Coefficient
• Geostrophic Wind
• Humidity Profiles
• Ice
• ICE SURFACE SKIN TEMPERATURE
• INITIALIZATION INVERSION ALGTHM
• NOAA/NASA Pathfinder
• North Polar Basin
• NSIDC DAAC
• Ocean Surface Skin Temperature
• Path P
• Polar Exchange At Sea Surface
• Poles
• SNOW ICE
• Temperature Profiles
• TOVS
• Turning Angle

ISO Topic Category (View Definitions)

• Climatology/Meteorology/Atmosphere

Platform

• NOAA-10 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration-10
• NOAA-11 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration-11
• NOAA-12 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration-12
• NOAA-13 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration-13
• NOAA-14 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration-14
• NOAA-6 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration-6
• NOAA-7 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration-7
• NOAA-8 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration-8
• NOAA-9 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration-9

Instrument

• HIRS High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder
• MSU Microwave Sounding Unit
• SOUNDERS
• TOVS TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder

Project

• CEAREX Coordinated Eastern Arctic Experiment
• EOSDIS Earth Observing System Data Information System
• ESIP Earth Science Information Partners Program
• NOAA/NASA PATHFINDER NOAA/NASA Pathfinder Program

Quality

The algorithm used to generate these grids has been validated directly through comparisons with surface observations from the CEAREX experiment and with radiosonde data from Soviet ice stations. Comparisons with other TOVS retrieval algorithms provided further validation. Additionally, Schweiger et al. (1999) found a strong correlation between the TOVS Path-P data and surface cloud observations obtained from the North Polar drifting meteorological stations, which indicates that the TOVS data effectively represent annual cloud cover.

Access Constraints

Users are strongly encouraged to register before accessing data. Registered users automatically receive release notes via e-mail containing notification of data manipulation or formatting modifications.

Data Set Progress

in work

Data Center

NASA DAAC at the National Snow and Ice Data Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org/daac/index.html

Data Center Personnel

Name: NSIDC User Services
Phone: 1 303 492-6199
Fax: 1 303 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:

• National Snow and Ice Data Center
• CIRES, 449 UCB
• University of Colorado

City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

National Snow and Ice Data Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org

Data Center Personnel

Name: NSIDC User Services
Phone: 1 303 492-6199
Fax: 1 303 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:

• National Snow and Ice Data Center
• CIRES, 449 UCB
• University of Colorado

City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

Distribution

Distribution Media: FTP
Distribution Size: 494.5 - 760.6 MB
Distribution Format: HDF

Personnel

Jennifer A. Francis
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Phone: 1 206 543-1254
Fax: 1 206 543-3521
Email: francis@apl.washington.edu
Contact Address:

• Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences
• Rutgers University
• New Brunswick, New Jersey
• USA

Axel J. Schweiger
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Phone: 1 206 543-1312
Fax: 1 206 543-3521
Email: axel@apl.washington.edu
Contact Address:

• Applied Physics Laboratory
• University of Washington
• 1013 NE 40th Street

City: Seattle
Province or State: WA
Postal Code: 98105-6698
Country: USA

NSIDC User Services
Role: TECHNICAL CONTACT
Phone: 1 303 492-6199 x
Fax: 1 303 492-2468 x
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:

• National Snow and Ice Data Center
• CIRES, 449 UCB
• University of Colorado

City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

Related URL

VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
DAAC Data: The NOAA/NASA Polar Pathfinder Program

VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
Path-P: TOVS Polar Pathfinder Gridded Daily Arctic Atmospheric Data fromTOVS

VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
Path-P: TOVS Polar Pathfinder
Gridded Daily Arctic Atmospheric Data from TOVS

VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
EASE-Grid Data

Reference

Armstrong, R. L. and M. J. Brodzik. 1995. An Earth-gridded SSM/I Data Set for Cryospheric Studies and Global Change Monitoring. Advances in Space Research 16:155-63.

Brodzik, M. J. 1998. The EASE-Grid, A Versatile Set of Equal-Area Projections and Grids. Special report to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colorado USA.

Brodzik, M. J. 1998. Summary of NOAA/NASA Polar Pathfinder Grid Relationships. Special report to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colorado USA.

Chedin, A., N. A. Scott, C. Wahiche, P. Moulineier. 1985. The Improved Initialization Inversion Method: A high Resolution Physical Method for Temperature Retrievals from Satellites of the TIROS-N Series. Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology pp. 62-65.

Chiaachio, M., J. Francis, and P. W. Stackhouse, Jr. 1998. Evaluation and Development of Nighttime Arctic Cloud Base Algorithms for CERES. American Meteorological Society 5th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceans. pp. 300-05.

Francis, J., A. Munchow, and R. Cermak. 1998. Analyses of Long-term 10-meter Winds over the Arctic Basin. American Meteorological Society 5th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceans. pp. 66-68.

Francis, J. and A. Schweiger. 1999. A New Window to the Arctic. Journal of Climate 12(8) (August): 2189-2213, Part I.

Francis, J. A. 1994. Improvements to TOVS Retrievals over Sea Ice and Applications to Estimating Arctic Energy Fluxes. Journal of Geophysical Research 99(D5):10,395-408.

Francis, J. and A. Schweiger. 1998. The NASA/NOAA TOVS Polar Pathfinder: 18 Years of Arctic data. American Meteorological Society 5th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceans. 24:128-43.

Francis, J. A. 1994. Improvements to TOVS Retrievals over Sea Ice and Applications to Estimating Arctic Energy Fluxes. Journal of Geophysical Research 99(D5):10,395-408.

Goddard Space Flight Center. 1994. EOSDIS Version 0 Data Product Implementation Guidelines. Draft Version 1.0 (March 1, 1994). GSFC 50-003-04. GSFC. Greenbelt, MD.

Groves, D. G. 1998. A New Moisture Budget of the Arctic Atmosphere Derived from 19 Years of Daily TOVS Satellite Moisture Retrievals and NCEP Reanalysis Winds. American Meteorological Society 5th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceans. pp. 107-12.

Groves, D. G. 1998. Temporal Variability of Arctic Atmospheric Moisture Budget Quantities Derived from Daily TOVS Satellite Moisture Retrievals and NCEP Reanalysis Winds. American Meteorological Society 5th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceans. pp. 380-82.

Key, J., D. Slayback, C. Xu, and A. Schweiger. 1998. New Climatologies of Polar Clouds and Radiation Based on the ISCCP 'D' Products. American Meteorological Society 5th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceans. pp. 227-32.

National Center for Supercomputing Applications. 1994. HDF Reference Manual. Version 3.3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 1991. NOAA Polar Orbiter Data Users Guide. Washington, D.C.: National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, National Climatic Data Center Satellite Data Services Division.

Overland, J. E., and R. L. Colony. 1994. Geostrophic Drag Coefficients over the Central Arctic Derived from Soviet Drifting Station Data. Tellus. 46(A):75-85.

Overland, J. E., and K. L. Davidson. 1992. Geostrophic Drag Coefficients over Sea Ice. Tellus. 44(A):54-66.

Schweiger, A. J., R. W. Lindsay, J. R. Key, and J. A. Francis. 1999. Arctic Clouds in Multiyear Satellite Data Sets. Geophysical Research Letters 26(13):1,845-48. Document is also available online at http://www.agu.org/GRL/articles/1999GL900479/GL841W01.pdf .

Schweiger A., C. Fowler, J. Key, J. Maslanik, J. Francis, R. Armstrong, M. J. Brodzik, T. Scambos, T. Haran, M. Ortmeyer, S. Khalsa, D. Rothrock, R. Weaver. 1998. P-Cube: A Multi-sensor Data Set for Polar Climate Research. American Meteorological Society 5th Conference on Polar Meteorology and Oceans. pp. 136-141.

Schweiger, A., Francis, J. 1994. TOVS Pathfinder Path-P Gridded Daily and Monthly Arctic Atmospheric Data from TOVS User's Guide. Draft version 0.1. University of Washington, Seattle.

Schweiger, A. J., R. W. Lindsay, J. A. Francis, J. R. Key, J. Intrieri, M. Shupe. Validation of TOVS Path-P Data During SHEBA. Submitted to Journal of Geophysical Research, May 2000. (http://psc.apl.washington.edu/pathp/html/publications/papers_list.html#S2000)

Stubenrauch, C. J, W. B. Rossow, F. Cheruy, A. Chedin and N. A. Scott. 1999. Clouds as Seen by Satellite Sounders (3) and Imagers (ISCCP), Part I. Evaluation of Cloud Parameters. Journal of Climate 12 (8) (August): 2189-2213.

Metadata Name and Version

Metadata Name: CEOS IDN DIF
Metadata Version: 9.7

Creation and Review Dates

DIF Creation Date: 1999-09-01
Last DIF Revision Date: 2012-07-09

DIF Text-Only

Directory Interchange Format (DIF) in plain text

DIF XML

Directory Interchange Format (DIF) in Extensible Markup Language (XML)

FGDC HTML

U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM)

ISO HTML

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 19115:2003 Geographic Information Metadata