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DOCUMENTATION

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Regional Air-Sea Interaction (RASI) Gap Wind and Coastal Upwelling Events Climatology Data Sets

Table of Contents

Introduction
Citation
     Panama
     Papagayo
     Tehuantepec
Data Description

Investigators
File Naming Convention
Data Format
References
Contact Information

Introduction

The Regional Air-Sea Interaction (RASI) Gap Wind and Coastal Upwelling Events Climatology data sets contain regional wind jet and ocean upwelling events derived from measurements of ocean surface wind speeds taken at 6-hour intervals and daily sea surface temperatures recorded at three sites associated with gap winds in Central America (the Gulf of Panama, the Gulf of Papagayo, and the Gulf of Tehuantepec). Coastal gap wind jets result from the interaction between large-scale atmospheric systems and orographic features and are capable of causing cold water ocean upwelling. An event detection algorithm was developed for identifying and providing statistics on gap wind and ocean upwelling events using Cross-Calibrated, Multi-Platform (CCMP) ocean surface wind and Optimally Interpolated Sea Surface Temperature (OISST) data products. A web application has been developed to allow users to browse event information, view images, and download temporal subsets of selected parameters associated with wind and ocean upwelling events. The data, produced as part of NASA's MEaSUREs Program, covers the study period from January 1998 to December 2011 and is available in netCDF format. Users may view, plot, and obtain gap wind and ocean upwelling event data at http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/rasi/ and the data sets are available to order through GHRC's Hydro search engine.

Citation

The following examples show how to cite the use of these data sets in a publication. For more information, please see our Citing GHRC DAAC and Data page.

Panama

Li, X. and D. Smith. 2014. Regional Air-Sea Interaction (RASI) Gap Wind and Coastal Upwelling Events Climatology Gulf of Panama, Panama [indicate subset used]. Data sets available online [http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/] from the NASA EOSDIS Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center, Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A. doi: [Coming Soon]

Papagayo

Li, X. and D. Smith. 2014. Regional Air-Sea Interaction (RASI) Gap Wind and Coastal Upwelling Events Climatology Gulf of Papagayo, Costa Rica [indicate subset used]. Data sets available online [http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/] from the NASA EOSDIS Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center, Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A. doi: [Coming Soon]

Tehuantepec

Li, X. and D. Smith. 2014. Regional Air-Sea Interaction (RASI) Gap Wind and Coastal Upwelling Events Climatology Gulf of Tehuantepec, Mexico [indicate subset used]. Data sets available online [http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/] from the NASA EOSDIS Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center, Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A. doi: [Coming Soon]

Data Description

The RASI Climatology data sets consist of the temporal specifications of the occurrences of gap wind and coastal upwelling events. For these events, wind and SST data statistics, including mean and standard deviation, are calculated over the identified event regions. The Wind and SST observed, extracted from Cross-Calibrated Multi-Platform (CCMP) ocean surface winds and Interpolated Sea Surface Temperatures (OISST) data, are also recorded for site-specific reference points, and ultimately used in the RASI event identification algorithm to determine the beginning and end of gap wind and upwelling events. The gap wind and ocean upwelling event data is available to view, plot, and obtain at http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/rasi/. Here, users may view gap wind and ocean upwelling events on a calendar, where one may click on an event and be taken to the associated image for that time in a new window. Users may also view and download tables and graphs displaying information about specific parameters from such events within a user-defined date range. The data sets also are available to order through GHRC's Hydro search engine.

The CCMP ocean surface winds are derived using a 4D variational analysis method (VAM) to combine wind measurements derived from SeaWinds on QuikSCAT, SeaWinds on ADEOS-II (Advanced Earth Observation Satellite), AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS on Aqua), TRMM TMI (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission's Microwave Imager), and both SSM/I (Special Sensor Microwave/Imager) and SSMIS (Special Sensor Microwave/Imager Sounder) on DMSP satellites (SSMI: F8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15; SSMIS: F17). The data contains global 25 kilometer resolution ocean surface winds at 6 hour intervals and is available from the NASA PO-DAAC (http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/). The SST data is the Microwave OISST data set from Remote Sensing Systems (http://www.remss.com/sst/), created using SSTs from TMI, AMSR-E and WindSat measurements which are combined into daily, diurnally corrected files using an optimal interpolation technique. The diurnally corrected SST measurements are available on a 0.25 degree Earth grid and represent a daily 12 noon foundation SST.

Investigators

Deborah Smith
Remote Sensing Systems
Santa Rosa, CA 95401

Xiang Li
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Information Technology and Systems Center
Huntsville, AL 35805

File Naming Convention

The Regional Air-Sea Interaction (RASI) Gap Wind and Coastal Upwelling Events Climatology data sets consist of .nc netCDF files. The files are named with the following convention:

RASI_SITE_YYYY.nc

where,

RASI = Regional Air-Sea Interaction
SITE = Panama, Papagayo, or Tehuantepec
YYYY = Year
nc = netCDF file

These files contain ocean surface wind and sea surface temperature measurements throughout the study period.

Data Format

The Regional Air-Sea Interaction (RASI) Gap Wind and Coastal Upwelling Events Climatology data sets are available in netCDF format.

References

Regional Air-Sea Interactions (RASI) Climatology for Central America Coastal Gap Wind and Upwelling Events. Extended abstract presented at Oceans 2014 MTS/IEEE Conference, September 2014.

Keiser, K., Li, X., Smith, D.K., Beaumont, B., and T. Harper, 2012: Building a Climatology for Coastal Gap Winds and Resulting Ocean Upwelling Events. Poster, 2012 Winter ESIP Federation Meeting, Washington, DC, The Federation of Earth Science Information Partners, https://www.itsc.uah.edu/main/sites/default/files/ESIPmeeting2012_DISCOVER-GapWind-poster.jpg

Li, X., Smith, D.K., and K. Keiser, 2012: Automated Detection of Gap Wind and Ocean Upwelling Events in Central American Gulf Regions. Paper, 92nd Amer. Meteor. Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, Amer. Meteor. Soc., https://www.itsc.uah.edu/main/biblio/automated-detection-gap-wind-and-ocean-upwelling-events-central-american-gulf-regions

Contact Information

To order these data or for further information, please contact:

Global Hydrology Resource Center
User Services
320 Sparkman Drive
Huntsville, AL 35805
Phone: 256-961-7932
E-mail: support-ghrc@earthdata.nasa.gov
Web: http://ghrc.nsstc.nasa.gov/

 

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