TOVS Pathfinder Path-P Daily and Monthly Polar Gridded Atmospheric Parameters, Version 1
Data set id:
NSIDC-0027
DOI: 10.5067/7L44Z9QVXUNL
This is the most recent version of these data.
Version Summary
Version Summary
Initial release
Overview
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).
Parameter(s):
AIR TEMPERATURECLOUD FRACTIONCLOUD PRECIPITABLE WATERCLOUD TOP PRESSURECLOUD TOP TEMPERATUREEMISSIVITYWIND STRESS
Platform(s):
NOAA-10, NOAA-11, NOAA-12, NOAA-14, NOAA-6, NOAA-7, NOAA-8, NOAA-9
Sensor(s):
MSU, TOVS
Data Format(s):
HDF
Temporal Coverage:
12 July 1979 to 31 December 2001
1 January 1979 to 31 December 2005
1 January 1979 to 31 December 2005
Temporal Resolution:
- 1 month
- 1 day
Spatial Resolution:
- 100 km
- 100 km
Spatial Coverage:
N:
-60
S:
-90
E:
180
W:
-180
N:
90
S:
60
E:
180
W:
-180
Blue outlined yellow areas on the map below indicate the spatial coverage for this data set.
Data Access & Tools
A free NASA Earthdata Login account is required to access these data. Learn More
Documentation
Help Articles
General Questions & FAQs
The TOVS Level 1b data for some days were either unavailable or of insufficient quality to use as ingest into the Path-P processing algorithm. Currently, empty files exist as placeholders for these dates until compatible data can be obtained.
How to Articles
Harmony API Quickstart Guide: Customizing NASA NSIDC DAAC data in Earthdata Cloud
To convert HDF5 files into binary format you will need to use the h5dump utility, which is part of the HDF5 distribution available from the HDF Group. How you install HDF5 depends on your operating system.
Data from the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) can be accessed directly from our HTTPS file system. We provide basic command line Wget and curl instructions for HTTPS file system downloads below.
List of available files
The following program files are available for download via HTTPS, along with the TOVS Pathfinder Path-P Daily and Monthly Polar Gridded Atmospheric Parameters&
Introduction
NSIDC developed a number of IDL programs to browse and visualize TOVS Pathfinder Path-P Daily and Monthly Polar Gridded Atmospheric Parameters data files.