Open AccessComparison of surface meteorological measurements in TRACT database 4
Author(s) -
R.J. Barthelmie,
N.O. Jensen
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
annales geophysicae
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.522
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1432-0576
pISSN - 0992-7689
DOI - 10.1007/s00585-996-0574-9
Subject(s) - database , environmental science , meteorology , data quality , cluster analysis , remote sensing , computer science , data mining , geography , engineering , metric (unit) , operations management , machine learning
The observational systems utilised during theTRACT experimental campaign (September 1992) can roughly be divided into:existing climate stations and towers: background chemical monitoring stations;aerological measurements; instrumented aircraft; and special micrometeorologicalstations operated only during the experimental period. Database 4, whichcontains the latter surface measurements, includes station descriptions and datafrom 21 sites operated by nine different groups during the campaign period.These data will be described briefly. There are a number of advantages in usinga relational database for analysis of this data. Without creating anunnecessarily large database which is awkward to view and slow to process,specific measurements can be selected easily since data from each site have beenstandardized using a common time index. This allows comparison of the same ordifferent variables from one or more sites for investigating data quality or theeffects of site location. Data can readily be combined into hourly or dailyaverages or time series for comparison with other data sets (e.g. model oraircraft data). Spatial analysis is also straightforward, although theclustering of the sites in the centre of the investigation area means that caremust be taken. Some preliminary comparisons are made here in order todemonstrate the availability and reliability of the data