1. 1 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA NCDC Report to US Port Meteorological Officers 26-28 August 2014 Eric Freeman 1,2, Scott Woodruff 1,3, Sandra Lubker 4 1) NOAA National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, USA 2) STG. Inc., Asheville, USA 3) Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, USA 4) NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory, Boulder, USA

2. 2 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA Outline NCDC/US VOS/PMO Interactions SEAS 2000 Archive Issues Importance of US VOS Internationally – Real Time Reports – Delayed Mode Reports – ICOADS

3. 3 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA NCDC and US VOS NCDC collects/archives reports from: – SEAS/TurboWin delayed mode reports – Real time GTS transmissions NCDC is Contributing Member (CM) and Responsible Member (RM) for US VOS delayed mode (DM) reports – Global, quarterly data exchanges with WMO Global Collecting Centres (GCC) Responsible for providing US VOS reports to GCCs for inclusion in full global file

4. 4 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA NCDC and US VOS Collaborations with AOML/US VOS on SEAS 9 data validation (IMMT-5 format) and updates Collaborations on procedures for collecting delayed reports and submissions to NCDC – IMMT procedure document (Lead: Chris Fakes, Houston) Daily reports for PMOs regarding US VOS observations collected in NCDC GTS stream (see next slide)

5. 5 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA PMO Reports - Updated Daily By Port http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/do wnload/pmorpts/pmorpt.txt By ship name http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/dow nload/pmorpts/pmorpta.txt

6. 6 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA SEAS 2000 Archive Issues Differences discovered in GTS transmissions and SEAS 2000 delayed mode reports Full scope of problem unknown – Appear to be non-systematic Doubtful if simple global fix can easily ‘correct’ erroneous data – Assume GTS reports are correct (via comparisons with NCEP/other GTS collections) – Being removed from ICOADS for Release 3.0 R3.0 currently under development Release expected late next year

7. 7 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA SEAS 2000 Issues - Examples Example 1 071023000000WTEB 230049957671332416988990510079200464017652015702218872/222 // 0////2////3////4////5////6////80063////////// BBXX01102320070038 WTEB 23004 99576 71332 41698 89905 10079 20040 40176 52015 70221 8872/ 22211 0//// 2//// 3//// 4//// 5//// 6//// 80063 ICE ///// NCDC GTS Observation: DS (1) and VS (1) both present in GTS transmission, but not SEAS data Example 2 071024180000WTEJ 24184991457104941697599001027220227401235000270222852692225200282200003311940802510026////80240////////// BBXX01102420071822 WTEJ 24184 99145 71049 41697 50000 10272 2023/ 40123 50002 70222 85269 22252 00282 20000 33119 40802 51002 6//// 80240 ICE ///// NCDC GTS has wind direction reported as calm '00', but reported as variable '99' in SEAS Example 3 030410090000WGXO 10093994957004541498205131007821034401165400070161821702222400097203033062840505504046////80033////////// BBXX01041020030635 WGXO 10093 99495 70045 41498 20513 10078 2099/ 40116 54000 70161 82170 22224 00097 20303 30628 40505 50404 6//// 81033 ICE ///// NCDC GTS observation has sign of wet bulb as '1' (negative measured), but reported as ‘0’ (positive measured) in SEAS Additional issues with other variables, e.g. dwpt, sst

8. 8 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA Importance of US VOS Reports – Real Time (RT) GTS Receipts 90% of VOS GTS observations in 2012 are from six national VOS fleets (SOT-VII) US VOS is #1 of six major contributors (for Apr 2014) Important source for global coverage/marine climate products Valuable for satellite cal/val and co-located buoy data quality comparisons High density in N. Pacific and N. Atlantic Unique reports in Southern Ocean and near Alaska

9. 9 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA Importance of US VOS Reports – Delayed Mode (DM) from E-Logbooks Provides verification of GTS transmissions Provides US data for quarterly international exchanges with WMO Global Collecting Centers (GCC) – Major declines in recent years due to: NOAA Paperless Initiative (coincidental with Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP) at NCDC no longer in existence to digitize B-81 forms) SEAS 2000 data problems Delays in SEAS 9.1 installation on ships Transition to TurboWin (5.0 and Plus[+] versions)

10. 10 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA Importance of US VOS Reports – Delayed Mode (DM) from E-Logbooks Provides additional elements not available in FM-13 SHIP Code from Voluntary Observing Ship Climate Fleet (VOSClim) ships – Ship’s speed over ground at time of observation – Ship’s heading at time of observation – Height of deck cargo above summer maximum load line – Departure of summer maximum load line from actual sea level – Uncorrected (i.e. relative) wind speed and direction

11. 11 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA Platform Mixture in ICOADS – Observing System Monitoring Ship reports on increase after decline 1990-2010 – Mostly due to widespread use of AWS systems – Currently, only half the number of VOS ships reporting compared to a decade ago

12. 12 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA Elements observed from ICOADS – Observing System Monitoring Losing traditional visual obs. (e.g. clouds, sea state) due to decline in VOS and expanded use of AWS systems – drifting buoys and other automated platform types fill in gaps globally, but primarily SST and SLP

13. 13 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA Recommendations Transition US VOS fleet to TurboWin (5.0 or Plus[+]) – Internationally coordinated software development – Robust and widely used – TurboWin+ is AMVER capable Continue to promote ships to VOSClim class for improved, climate quality observations Stay engaged with international activities – JCOMM’s Ship Observation Team (SOT) Improve/expand long term climate datasets, i.e. ICOADS, through RT and DM reporting

14. 14 NOAA’S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER – ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA Thank You! Questions? Contact: Eric.Freeman@noaa.gov