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NOTICE OF UPCOMING
ARGO DATA FILE FORMAT CHANGE
The Argo Data Management Team will be implementing relatively minor
changes to the netCDF formats. The target date to implement the change is 22
March 2006.
A brief description of the changes follows. Refer to the
Argo
USER’S MANUAL, version 2.1 for full details .
DESCRIPTION OF CHANGES:
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Length
of Parameter Names
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The length of parameter name variables is being increased from 4 characters
to 16 characters to allow meaningful names for new data variables.
The affected variables are:
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- Profile files: STATION_PARAMETERS, PARAMETER, and
HISTORY_PARAMETER
- Trajectory files: TRAJECTORY_PARAMETERS and
HISTORY_PARAMETER
- Meta-data files: SENSOR and PARAMETER
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There are no changes to the currently defined parameter names (ie, PRES,
TEMP, PSAL, CNDC, etc).
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Adjusted Data in Real-time.
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The DATA_MODE variable has an additional value in the profile data files.
The possible values are "R : real time; D : delayed mode; A : real time with
adjustment". The new value A indicates that the real-time data has been
adjusted (for instance to correct a pressure or salinity drift) and that the
<param>_ADJUSTED variables contain the adjusted values.
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Meta-data files: Two new variables are being added -
WMO_INST_TYPE and INST_REFERENCE. The variable
PLATFORM_SERIAL_NO is being removed.
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Change
to History Section of Trajectory Files.
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The history section of the Trajectory files is significantly different than
the previous version. The revision is designed to substantially reduce the
size of trajectory files as history data are recorded in the files.
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Removal
of the History Section from Multi-profile Files.
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The dac/*_prof, geo, latest_data files will not contain the profile history
information. This information will still be available in the individual
profile data files.
Note: The history variables will still be present in the files to preserve
format compatibility but they will be empty. This is to prevent the
excessive file sizes of the multi-profile files that were largely due to the
history variables.
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Change
to Definition of PROFILE_<param>_QC
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This variable is the overall quality flag for the profile data. The new
definition for these variables will indicate the percent of good values in
the profiles. The QC codes are being changed to a single letter value to
avoid confusion with the numeric QC codes currently in use. The values are
defined as follows (where N is the percentage of levels in the profile with
good values):
A N = 100%; All profile levels contain good data.
B 75% <= N < 100%
C 50% <= N < 75%
D 25% <= N < 50%
E 0% < N < 25%
F N = 0%; No profile levels have good data.
(blank) No QC has been performed
Refer to Table 2a in the new Users Manual for complete details.
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Several
of the reference tables have been updated to add new
information or improve the existing information.
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