1. Observations assimilated in the PME Real-time system
NCAR FDDA system is a continuous data assimilation system. The observational data can be assimilated include but not limited to:
- METAR observations (includes "Specials")
- Ship/buoy observations
- Local surface observations
- WMO rawinsonde observations
- NESDIS satellite-derived winds
- ACARS aircraft observations
- TAMDAR aircraft observations
- MESONETs observations
- Wind profilers observations
- Radiometer observations
In PME real-time system, the observations are obtained from NCEP prebufr data, WMO data, and MADIS data.
2. Location of input data on the PME Saudi-c3 machine
The input data for the model runs are located at:
/d1/pmeop/datainput
There are four types of input data grouped into four subdirectories as follows:
/gfs4 GFS forcing data at 0.5 degree resolution;
/sst083 SST data; and
/madis_decoded Madis decoded data.
/ncep_decoded WMO decoded data
/ncep_prepbufr_decoded NCEP prepbufr data
Currently, the GFS 0.5 degree data downloaded from the NCEP NOMADS website http://nomades.ncdc.noaa.gov/data.php are used as model boundary. However, some changes in the file names are done beforehand: instead of the default file names in the form of gfs.t00z.pgrb2f{hh}, the modified file names in the form of CCYYMMDD00_fh.00{hh}_tl.press_gr.0p5deg.grib2 are used.
The SST data are downloaded through the issuance of the command:
/bin/csh /home/pmeop/datbin/get_sst083.csh
These input data are downloaded in real time as they become available at the corresponding ftp sites. With the current naming convention, the model system can locate and copy over or link the input data automatically during the preprocessing.
The decoded data are in littler ascii format, can be view directly.