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ASPEN USER MANUAL - Earth Observing Laboratory

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1. Data Product File Output Formats Raw data NetCDF CSV NCAR CLASS format ASCII text NCAR EOL format ASCII text QC data NetCDF CSV NCAR CLASS format ASCII text NCAR EOL format ASCII text Graphics JPG PNG 3 See Comma Separated Values CSV on page 48 for a more general description of Aspen compatible CSV files April 2006 40 ASPEN USER MANUAL INPUT FILE TYPES Data Product File Output Formats or use Alt PrtSc for clipboard capture Levels None WMO message ASCII text April 2006 41 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX A CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS Appendix A Configuration Parameters The Aspen configuration is stored in XML format There are two files aspen xml and aspen dtd aspen xml contains the actual configuration values while aspen dtd defines the syntax of the aspen xml file Explanation of the structure of XML files is beyond the scope of this manual However given an existing XML file it is not difficult to discern the layout of the information XML elements are delineated by start and end tags and are nested to create a hierarchical data structure aspen xml observes the following structure lt aspenConfig gt lt active gt dropsonde lt active gt lt set name sample gt lt option name SetHtsMissing type bool gt lt current gt false lt current gt lt default gt false lt default gt lt option gt lt option name WindSmoothWL t
2. End of data In a well behaved sounding the end of the raw data set will occur at the end of the sounding For a dropsonde landing in water this is the usual case For a dropsonde hitting the earth or with upsondes the raw data can contain observations that should not be included in the processed sounding The user must then manually specify the end of the drop by setting the end of drop time on the Main tab It is critical that the end of drop be correctly set for dropsonde soundings The Raw data table and the XY graph are useful for determining the end time Scroll to the bottom of the raw data to view the values of individual data points On the XY graph enable the raw data trace and use the mouse to zoom in the area of the sounding end Data point markers and grids can be enabled with buttons above the graph The QC tabular display will only show data points that are within the end of data time period Dropsonde heights and the surface For dropsonde soundings the height calculations are the trickiest part of the Aspen analysis If the drop terminated cleanly at a known altitude upward integration of the heights is straightforward Upward integration is impossible however if the dropsonde termination altitude is unknown This can occur if the drop did not make it all of the way to the surface or if it the termination point on land had an unknown altitude which is almost always the case In the latter situations the sounding
3. The limits are set at Table 2 Limit Check Bounds Parameter Minimum Maximum P 1 mb 1200 mb T 100 C 50 C RH 0 100 Wind Speed 0 m s 150 m s Wind Direction 0 360 7 Satellite Check Dn Up Wind GPS derived winds are not reliable if an insufficient number of satellites are used in their computation If the number of satellites falls below a minimum the associated wind observations are discarded Configuration item Number of Satellites 8 Buddy Check Dn Up P T RH Wind This test uses the data points on either side of an observation to check for consistency and is useful for detecting and removing wild points Since the neighboring points may be separated from the observation by varying time deltas the buddy check thresholds are specified in terms of change per unit time A point is discarded if it shows a change greater than the limit for one neighbor and a change greater than the limit but of the opposite sign for the other neighbor Configuration Item Buddy Check Slope 9 Outlier Check Dn Up P T RH Wind A least squares linear fit to the data series is calculated Data points that are greater than a specified multiple of the standard deviation from the linear fit are removed from the data set Configuration Item Outlier Check 10 Filter Check Dn Up P T RH Wind A copy of the data series is low pass filtered at a given wavelength Data points are removed if they differ from the filt
4. ASPEN USER MANUAL CONFIGURATION Block Station Number and Call Sign These are identifiers that are required either for the TEMP TEMPSHIP or TEMPMOBILE messages Upsonde Abbreviated Header The WMO abbreviated header for upsonde WMO messages Note that dropsonde abbreviated headers are specified on the Comm tab Upsonde ICAO Code ICAO code for upsonde abbreviated headers Note that dropsonde ICAO codes are specified on the Comm tab Email address for TEMP Address to receive an emailed WMO message Append NNNN Terminator If checked append NNNN to the WMO message when it is saved or emailed Some communications systems such as the GTS require this terminator Disable Abbreviated Header If checked the abbreviated header will not be generated for the WMO message This is useful in the common situation where another system generates the abbreviated header Dropsonde Mass and Parachute Area The dropsonde mass and parachute area are required in order to estimate the initial fall speed of the dropsonde after launch from the aircraft The values differ only from the defaults in special cases where a custom parachute or modified sonde are deployed Dropsonde Hit Surface This box is checked if the dropsonde was believed to have hit the surface This causes the sounding altitudes to be integrated from the surface altitude upwards otherwise they will be integrated from the flight level altitude if available downward If checked it
5. Main Tab cad eret tet eet Cen woe NEP He e the E Pee To Oed ERR ted etes 8 Raw and QC Tabs aran NS 9 XY Graph Tab ect rtt te ei ee D T eee e ee Ped nex edet 10 DKS WA EE EE 12 Levels Tabu sette tst ere doanh la 13 WMOQY T2b then eee NA 14 Comriii 12 1 o sition epe eene oreste SEENEN e RA 15 Menu COS A s st ssesss 17 ile 13111 KEE 17 TOOLS MEU reete e A ud eet E E ned gees ta da adh Eos dahon La Eee Re Ta lan Oates 17 Mie E EE 17 Window E BEE 17 ToOlbab snum intem eee Et Dee EUR fe dte e NE 17 Quality Control Procedures 5 sccsscosssevoscssscensssvensiessiesvenssbnuroesvoussscsstsevbscwdnusssesteaveuanseees 18 Th ALETAS iuter o e trt EE d rede ep Hato ee oed teda 18 Guidelines for Adjusting QC Parameter 23 0111114117 11 erc oa A osota 26 Configuration Set Management 27 Changing the QC Parameter 28 Other OPS casa nd teet de eU amit 29 Saving Changes and Restoring Defaults esses 32 Corrupted Configurations inosine n aa a eaa enn enne n rentrer nennen nnns 33 BAL CIA NG 119 a a 34 April 2006 ii Starting BatchAspen and Selecting Files 34 101 69 14 TEE 36 OO Parameters avesse tient a eren deele A 37 PRS 1 3110 quem 38 e Al 38 to put File RU etm 40 Appendix A Configuration Parameters 00o000cc000c00000000000000000000002000000000000000000 42 Appendix B File f rm ts eee te toro O eoe Ye klan 48 E Be EE 48 EOL Omg eegene A a 48 eB EE 4
6. Vwnd Ascent Units sec mb deg C m s deg deg deg m deg C m s m s m s Data H AA Daten H Been E kr rt Data Ll 3857771165269 aere 10 79 ek D Data 38 8 71 06 60 33 8 23 104 25 30 99129 119 50375 18295 7 7 98 2 03 39 94 Data 51 8 77 01 63 75 8 67 160 11 30 99174 119 50441 17799 7 25 95 9 15 306 35 Data 66 3 83 86 62 29 30 99267 119 50520 17276 1 35 06 Data 75 8 88 52 64 99 8 95 119 15 30 99295 119 50592 16944 3 7 82 4 36 34 01 April 2006 50 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX C SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Appendix C System Requirements Screen resolution 1024x768 pixels or greater Windows display configured for small fonts Free disk space at least 20 MB Processor speed 500 MHz or better recommended System memory 256 MB RAM or greater Operating system Windows XP April 2006 51 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX D NETCDF ATTRIBUTES Appendix D netCDF Attributes The following shows the output of an ncdump command applied to an Aspen generated netCDF file netcdf D20010801 1758340C dimensions time s 2122 variables int base time base time long name sounding launch time base time units seconds since 1970 01 01 00 00 00 UTC base time string Wed Aug 01 17 58 34 2001 float time offset time time offset long name seconds since base time time offset units seconds time offset missing value 999 f time offset FillValue 999 f doub
7. po std dev 10 std dev Outlier Check o mb o des fo ts Offset to Add 2 mars 35 deos 20 id 5 mis 2 Buddy Check Slope o0 g 0 g po eo po g QC Filter Wavelenath 5 mw PB Hec B D mis QC Filter Deviation Limit F 5 g 5 m 10 s Final Smoothing Wavelength la Number of Satelites Limit 25 mes Vertical Velocity Difference Limit Cancel The quality control parameters are used to adjust the various quality control algorithms and are described in the Quality Control Procedures section Other Options The Other Options tab provides further options for the processing of sounding data April 2006 29 ASPEN USER MANUAL CONFIGURATION Quality Control Parameters Other Options Processing Levels Thresholds WMD identification iv P i 1 Temperature degC These parameters apply to upsonde messages M s Message Type Jer 10 RAILS TEMP C SHIP C MOBIL V Levels fo Wind Speed m s 25 WSpd below 850mb m s 99999 Block Station Number TEMP v WMO Message 10 Wind Direction deg CALL Call Sign SHIP MOBILE UUNA19 Upsonde Abreviated Header Tropopause Level Detection SE EE e Lapse rate smoothing TEMP Msg Options wavelength el NOBODY Email address for TEMP Append NNNN terminator Disable abbreviated header Dropsonde Parameters Dropsonde Mass 1395 grams Iw Dropsonde Hit Surface RH Channel Surface Altitude Unknown ap Parachute 676 square
8. by clicking on the BatchAspen icon A single screen will be presented The screen is roughly divided into left and right sections with control buttons in between The left side is used to select the files to be processed The right side specifies the output file destination and the processing list Batchaspen D x File Tools Help ol C Save Folder C Browse cornes zl C Program Files NCARspen Sarple Dala 4FRES D 19990824 _053457 2 fH MusicMetch T C Program Files NCAR Aspens ample D alaXAFRESVO1 9980824 061114 1 m CH NavNT p Products C Program Files NCAR Aspenis ample D alaXAFRESYO1 3980824 111047 2 B a NCAR Tl Raw netCDF C Program Files NCAR spen s ample D ala FRES O19980824_114019 3 GC Aspen C Program Files NCAR spen s ample D ala NoFRESND 13380824 114935 4 Y Doc F Raw Class C Program FilesNN CARI aspen s ample D ala XAFRE SKO 4980824 125547 1 OI Sample Data Tl Raw CSV C Program Files NCAR Aspen S ample D ala AFRESYO1 4980824 132116 2 3 AFRES air C Program Files NCARAspen S ample Dala AFRES O 19980824 132940 1 i CLASS QC netCDF C Program Filee NCARWspen S ample D alaVAFRES VO 19990824 151150 1 C3 ER2 T QC Class C Program FilesNN CAR MA spen NS ample D ala 0AFRE SNO 18980824 154642 1 aiv r QC CSV C Program Files NCAR NAspenNS ampla D ala t DE SNO 18980824 155446 4 C GLASS C Program Files CARINAspenNS arple D ala XAFRESYO19980824 170005 1 C Meass I wo C Program Files NCA
9. cm Iv Discard frames with CRC errors Miscellaneous Set Heights Missing Plot dimensions pixels x 11000 Y 700 Iw Open File Chooser on Startup Default plot file PNG JPG Position Interpolation Interval 60 seconds Number of Skew T Wind Barbs 20 Cancel QC Processing In normal usage this feature should always be enabled If it is turned off Aspen will only display the raw sounding data This may be useful if you want a quick look at a large data set without waiting for processing Levels WMO message These two features should always be enabled if WMO messages are the ultimate data product e g weather reconnaissance For all other soundings these features may be turned off Levels Thresholds These five parameters set the thresholds used in the determination of the GDL levels for the designated measurement They should be modified with caution since this would result in a deviation from the specifications of the FMH 3 Tropopause Level Detection Lapse Rate Smoothing Wavelength This is the wavelength of the smoother that will be applied to the temperature data before the automatic determination of tropopause levels is made A tropopause is identified by the derivative of the temperature lapse rate and so a high variance in temperature can lead to the creation of unrealistic tropopause levels WMO Message Type Choose the type of TEMP message to be generated for an upsonde sounding April 2006 30
10. desired files are chosen press the Add gt button to add them to the processing list on the right side of the screen Pressing Add All gt will cause all of the displayed files to be added to the processing list Selected files can also be dragged from the file selector and dropped into the processing list Files from multiple directories can be collected in a single processing list However all output files will be created in a single directory Files may be removed from the processing list by selecting them in the processing list and pressing the lt Remove button or press lt Remove All in order to empty the list completely To select the output directory hit the Browse button above the processing list A folder browser will pop up use it to select the folder for the output files ois ek x F J Projects a RECYCLED E C3 tmp C Archive C Downloads Ca HelpScribble C insure C MAP Dropsonde Data C RoseTest CJ scanjet C 3590 C TestRose CJ vssp5 E A inter Stearns Droe Cancel Z Create a new folder by pressing the new folder ei button April 2006 35 ASPEN USER MANUAL BATCHASPEN Q C Processing The desired output products are chosen using the toggles Products Raw netCDF Raw Class RawCSV QC netCDF QC Class QCCSV WMO An output file of each selected type will be created for each input file Process To begi
11. heights can be computed by downward integration from the launch altitude Note that this suitable only if the launch altitude is known with accuracy Usually the launch altitude is provided by the aircraft data system and it is critical to determine the accuracy of this altitude If altitude is provided by a radar altimeter over the ocean it is probably acceptable If it is provided by a pressure based altimeter at some time or distance since the altimeter setting was applied the aircraft provided altitude is probably not acceptable The Main tab has several items that relate to the height calculations In the box labeled Height Overrides there are check buttons that have the following effects e Hit Surface Check this check box if the dropsonde hit the surface The heights will be integrated up from the surface altitude April 2006 5 ASPEN USER MANUAL POST PROCESSING ADJUSTMENT e Unknown Surface Altitude Check this box if the surface altitude is unknown such as when a dropsonde has terminated on land The heights will be integrated down from the launch altitude e Set Heights Unknown Check this box if you feel the heights are not sufficiently accurate no matter which way they are calculated The heights will not be calculated or used in latter processing At the lower right of the Main tab is a box displaying the results of the upward and downward height integrations This is shown for diagnostic purposes If downwa
12. requires the time constant of the sensor making the measurement This time constant is a function of density and ventilation rate which are obtained from the pressure and vertical velocity The Algorithms The following table lists the QC processing steps in the order that Aspen applies them Also listed are the sounding direction and variables to which each step is applied Following the table is a more detailed description of each step Table 1 QC Processing Steps Procedure Sounding Variable Note Direction Dn Up P T RH Wind 1 Launch parameter v v v v v a overrides 2 Copy raw data set to v v v v v v QC data set 3 End of drop override v v v v v v 4 Ambient equilibration v v v v 5 Apply fixed offsets Y v v v v April 2006 18 ASPEN USER MANUAL QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES Procedure Sounding Variable Note Direction Dn Up RH Wind 6 Limit Check v v v v 7 Satellite Check v v v b 8 Buddy Check v v v v 9 Outlier Check Y Y v v 10 Filter Check v v v v 11 Pressure Smoothing v Y 12 Monotonic Pressure v Y Check 13 Temperature Dynamic Y v Adjustment 14 RH Lower Limiting Y Y v 15 Smoothing Y v v v 16 RH Lower Limiting Y Y v 17 Pressure Adjustment v 18 Compute Vertical v v Velocity 19 Vertical Velocity v v v b Check 20 Create Surface v v
13. the Main tab a new WMO message will be coded and any edits made previously will be lost Comm Tab Aspen D19991001_093756 1 lo xj BD ple Toole yew Widow Heb le xJ el alel Identifiers Abreviated Header Abreviated Header Override Clear Correction Number 0 Comm Port 51515 Group mon H Doubtful heights 1 61616 Group Agency Aircratt C437 Baud 12400 gt Mission Storm System VXWXA Mission Id TRAIN Observation Number 4 ICAO Id KNHC e ARWO Interface Type F WC130H C WC130J 62626 Group Environment JEYEWALL Azimuth 220 Retransmission of OB Corrected report T Send TEMPDROP message LastReport F Ready ziel The Comm tab is used to enter the administrative information that is coded in the WMO message It also has controls for transmitting the WMO message via an attached interface on the USAFR WC130 aircraft The field names should be self explanatory Press the Send TEMPDROP message button to transmit the WMO message A message box will pop up to indicate that the transmission is in progress April 2006 15 ASPEN USER MANUAL TAB DISPLAYS Most of the data entry fields on the Comm tab are saved as soon as they are entered and used as the defaults for the next sounding that is processed Be sure to verify that the fields are correct before saving or transmitting the message April 2006 16 ASPEN USER MANUAL MENU COMMANDS Menu Commands The me
14. 2 Leen File name Files of type Drop Files The file selector is used to choose the sounding file to be processed You can move to other directories using the up directory button or the directory chooser The file filter controls the file types that are displayed in the chooser If you do not see your data files in the directory where they are supposed to be it is probably because the file filter is set incorrectly Change the file filter to All files in order to display all files in the directory April 2006 3 ASPEN USER MANUAL OVERVIEW OF OPERATION Select the file containing the sounding that you want to analyze 2 Open Click once on the file and then press Open or double click the file name Aspen will show a warning message if you select a file that is in a format which it can t process Processing of the sounding begins as soon as the file is opened The progress of the analysis is displayed in the status box in the lower left hand corner of the main screen but until the processing is complete the screen will remain blank When the sounding analysis has completed the initial screen will be filled with a tab based display in which each tab represents a different view of the data The tabs are arranged from left to right see figure below in the general order of the data processing i e from raw data through the QC and levels computation to the coded message Read the Tab Displays
15. 3000 lt 2500 E w 2000 a T gt E Kade 15UU a lc a aT This tab provides numerous options for graphical display of the data The buttons above the graph select which data products and parameters are displayed The buttons also select the choice of vertical axis The main options on the XY Graph tab are as follows Time Pres Alt These buttons select the parameter displayed along the vertical axis When the tab is first selected time is chosen as the vertical axis with only the QC data plotted This leads to the cleanest display since time uniformly increases in both the raw and QC data When the raw data is displayed using the pressure or altitude axis the display may be confusing due to noise in the raw pressure reading Zoom UnZm To magnify zoom an area of the plot left click and drag to draw a rectangle around the area of interest Release the left mouse button to zoom into the defined area The UnZm button restores the graph to the full area display April 2006 10 ASPEN USER MANUAL TAB DISPLAYS If the plot is zoomed into a particular area and then the plot data type is changed or a different vertical axis is selected the plot area may go blank This is because the zoom area is now in the wrong region for the new plot type Hit the UnZm button to restore the plot to its full region Max The Max button can be pressed in order to expand the plot to the full screen o
16. 5 Surface Altitude Unknown Wind Direction deg Dropsonde over land Latitude deg 26 Dropsonde Height Integration Results Longitude deg 92 Upward Attitude m 7592 0 76096 Launch altitude m Dropsonde Surface Parameters Pressure mb 1016 6 Downward Attitude m 0 0 83 Low altitude m Active configuration name drcosonde The Main tab is used to specify certain characteristics of the sounding and to override the launch point observations Entering a value into the appropriate box specifies the override To remove the override press the associated Clear button Directions for using the height related controls is discussed in the Post Processing Adjustments section Be sure to press RECOMPUTE after changing items on the Main tab April 2006 8 ASPEN USER MANUAL TAB DISPLAYS Raw and QC Tabs fal Avaps Editor D19991001 093756 1 gt File Tools View Window Help Dag x 3 0 Pres mb Spd m s Dir deg Dz Dt m s 658 6 i 11 9 357 5 8 659 0 11 5 357 5 6 659 1 i 11 5 356 5 6 659 5 11 5 355 6 0 659 7 11 6 354 6 0 660 0 11 3 354 5 8 660 1 10 9 355 5 6 660 4 10 9 355 5 6 0 CJ JO 660 9 661 2 661 4 661 5 662 0 662 2 662 6 662 8 663 1 663 3 663 5 663 6 GRAN These two tabs each provide a table of data values The data is listed in time order The scrollbar on the right side is used to scroll up and down within the
17. 8 Comma Separated Values CSN 48 Appendix C System Requirements 000c0o0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000e 51 Appendix D netCDF Attributes momoommmsmsssss 52 April 2006 iii List of Tables Table 1 OC Processing EEN 18 Table 2 Limit Check Bounds alla debe re ii 21 Table 3 0 tpu t File DES eene entia edat esito lemen a d net a ne d nsec 40 Table 4 Configuration KEE tucks tese geritis mec ui E es 47 April 2006 i ASPEN USER MANUAL INTRODUCTION Introduction Aspen Atmospheric Sounding Processing Environment is used for analysis and quality control QC of sounding data It has the following capabilities e Automatically apply quality control procedures to the sounding data e Present data in tabular and graphical forms e Automatically determine levels and code them in WMO message formats e Transmit the WMO messages to other systems e Save the raw and derived data products in various formats Since Aspen can process data provided in the AVAPS D file NCAR GLASS NCAR MCASS and NCAR CLASS formats it is able to analyze both dropsonde and upsonde soundings Aspen is designed to operate as automatically as possible while allowing the user to have some control over the QC methods For instance as soon as the user selects a sounding file for processing the data is brought into Aspen and automatically analyzed In most cases this first pass will be the only one required If the
18. A Document Type Definition file aspen dtd accompanies aspen xml and must be located in the same directory See the Appendix A Configuration Parameters for a description of aspen xml The location of these files depends upon the version of Windows as well as the ASPENCONFIG environment variable When Aspen first runs it checks to see if ASPENCONFIG is set If it is Aspen then checks for the existence of the configuration XML Extensible Markup Language this is a widely used standard for defining structured data and is used extensively in Web applications April 2006 26 ASPEN USER MANUAL CONFIGURATION files in that directory If the files are not found Aspen offers to copy default configuration files to that directory If ASPENCONFIG is not set Aspen will assume directories for the configuration files according to the following e For Windows 98 systems The directory where Aspen is installed e For Windows NT 2000 XP systems C Documents and Settings lt user name gt Application Data Aspen This scheme allows individual users to maintain private versions of the configuration files Configuration Set Management Management of the configuration sets is available through the File gt Configure menu within Aspen and BatchAspen Choosing this item will cause a configuration set management dialog to open from which configuration sets may be activated deleted created and edited April 2006 Configura
19. ASPEN ATMOSPHERIC SOUNDING PROCESSING ENVIRONMENT USER MANUAL P Avars Editor D19991001 093756 1 2 Fle Tods View Window Help olaja zx a Ll ajz Yessure Alt QC Raw Levels Max Print UnZm T RH Speed Dir Sats Dz Pres Alt Temperature and Relative Humidity versus Pressure D19991001_0937S6 1 992435177 FF08 Lockheed Hleatra NJOSD Avaps Editor V2 1 2 06 Oat 1999 21 48 UTC QC Temperature Temperature C 10 15 DOE LL US 44352 LLAM Lb ec a 7 E KEE 80 90 so Relative Hurnidity 06 Charles Martin National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder Colorado 80307 3000 January 2004 COPYRIGHT 2005 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research All rights reserved No part of this manual may be reproduced electronically or photocopied translated into another language or duplicated by any means without prior written consent of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research UCAR All information contained in this manual is subject to change without notice April 2006 i Table of Contents ra E 1 Overview of SIDE 3 Post Processing Adjustment EE 5 End of data irr apa E A RO re e e eben 5 Dropsonde heights and the Surface cid Ee 5 Launch parameters ec Deae rte rod tbe eer echte 6 Setting the OC parameters 5 a reet ae ar Eo Ee EES 6 CAD DISPLAY er kake 8 Sounditig Identidad ve HR 2 8
20. INTRODUCTION A sounding is simply a time series of observations and so almost all Time is the of the QC operations are based on the time of each data point The independent QC parameters are specified in relation to time and the tabular data variable listings are ordered by time The complete processing routine is applied as soon as a sounding is The selected for analysis and whenever the user chooses to recompute the processing analysis The sequence is as follows follows a fixed 1 Apply the QC algorithms discarding bad points and applying corrections sequence 2 Compute the levels by analyzing the QC results 3 Code the WMO message using the levels as input Throughout this manual notes in italics provide additional information and suggestions which while not essential to operation will help you use Aspen more effectively April 2006 2 ASPEN USER MANUAL OVERVIEW OF OPERATION Overview of Operation 5 Run To run Aspen double click on the Aspen icon or choose Aspen from the start menu An initial start screen will appear If the file selector does not appear immediately choose Open under the File menu E Avaps Editor File View Help jejej ziel File menu You will now see the file selector Open 21x sj al ole ed 001_093756 1 3 419991001_093756 1 3 419991001_094449 2 Bos 3 4199 B 199 3 4199 E a19991001 1013072 2 D19991001 101307
21. Observation 21 Winds Dynamic v v v Adjustment 22 Compute Altitude V Y 23 Compute Position v v April 2006 19 ASPEN USER MANUAL QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES Procedure Sounding Variable Note Direction Dn Up P T RH Wind Notes a Launch parameter override for the winds will be available in a future version b GPS based winds only c Dependent upon sonde type A description of each processing step follows If the step can be adjusted via a configuration parameter the title for the configuration item is listed as it appears on the Aspen configuration editing dialog See the Configuration section for details on managing Aspen configurations 1 Launch parameter overrides Dn Up P T RH The user specified launch parameter overrides if any are substituted for the ones given in the data file 2 Copy raw data set to QC data set Dn Up P T RH Wind The QC data set is initialized with a copy of the original observation If the option is chosen to discard frames with CRC errors these frames are not copied to the QC data set except for the very last frame in the original observation applies only to AVAPS dropsonde soundings 3 End of drop override Dn Up P T RH Wind If the user has specified an end of drop time all data beyond this time is ignored 4 Ambient equilibration Dn P T RH Wind A dropsonde undergoes an extreme change in environment when exiti
22. R Aspen ample D ala XAFRESYO 19980824 171034 2 t 2 neBrowee x C Program Files NCAR spen S ample D ala XAFRESVO1 9980824 174011 3 C Program Files NCAR Aspenis ample D ala XAFRESVO 18980824 215301 2 Name ET Te Hes C Program Files WCARisperl ample D ala AFRIES O 13980824 234012 2 la D19980824_063457 2 72KB 2 File E i 019980824_061114 1 78KB 1 File po us D13980824 111047 2 93KB 2File ln D13980824 114019 3 90KB 3File iw D 13980824 114535 4 85 KB 4 File S a D13380824 125547 1 T6KB 7 File Lo um 019980824_132116 2 82KB 2 File 019980824_132948 1 93KB 1 File D13380824 151150 1 68KB 7 File e D13380824 154642 1 53KB Pie Exams wm D 13380824 155446 4 67KB 4File Remove Ai g D13380824 170005 1 79KB 1 File m D13380824 171094 2 BOKB 2 File le D13380824 174011 3 BIKB 3File le D13380824 215301 2 VIBKB 2File D1 3980824 234012 2 65KB 2File Process H rum configuralion name dropsonde April 2006 34 ASPEN USER MANUAL BATCHASPEN On the left side there are two independent directory browsers either of which can be used to navigate into directories containing input files The files in the selected directory are shown in the file selector in the lower left The display of file types can be restricted using the File Filter in the center edit box Individual files can be selected using the standard Explorer left click shift left click and ctrl left click mouse selection commands Once the
23. These parameters are generally useful for dropsonde soundings in a tropical environment If analyzing dropsonde soundings in different environments as well as upsonde soundings you will almost always need to create a new configuration set and adjust its QC parameters appropriately See the Configuration section for directions on setting the active set maintaining configuration sets The user should be in the habit of always checking the status bar to verify that the correct configuration set is designated as active To change the choice of active configuration set close all sounding files within Aspen The file menu will now have a Configuration entry that allows access to the configuration editor April 2006 7 ASPEN USER MANUAL TAB DISPLAYS Tab Displays Sounding Identifier Each tab displays an identifier that describes the sounding The details are extracted from various fields within the raw data file For graphical displays this information is printed as text on the graph For other tabs a yellow bar at the top of the tab contains the identification see figure below Main Tab Aspen D20011219 014932 3 E ll O File Tools Yew Window Heb le xj eli 1811 Reported Override WEE RECOMPUTE End of drop time 539 2 Launch parameters Launch Time Pressure mb 296 0 01 49 32 19 Dec 2001 Height Overrides Temperature deg C 21 RH 96 65 Set heights 6 Iz Hit surface LI desino Wind Speed m s
24. adjustments for temperature and wind speed can significantly increase the variance of the data series If the Q C results appear noiser than the raw data it will be due to the dynamic adjustments Use of the dynamic adjustments is the perogative of the user and can be deactivated in the configuration Note that the tendency of the series used in the adjustment is calculated from a smoothed version of the data The final smoothing wavelength is used for the smoothing value during the dynamic adjustment procedure If a very small smoothing wavelength is specified the variance increase in the Q C data can become significant April 2006 24 ASPEN USER MANUAL April 2006 QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES 25 ASPEN USER MANUAL CONFIGURATION Configuration Aspen is very flexible and can produce a large variety of output products It will analyze data from a number of different sounding systems In order to tailor it for differing applications Aspen provides a configuration system This same system is used to configure Aspen BatchAspen and AspenQC and the configuration information is shared between each of these programs Configuration Items At the heart of the configuration system is the configuration item which matches a keyword with a current value and a default value The keyword identifies a particular characteristic to be used during the next Aspen analysis e g the smoothing wavelength to be applied the pressure field or the mass of
25. also allows the computation of an extrapolated surface data point Surface Altitude Unknown Check this box if the dropsonde was believed to have hit the surface but the surface altitude is unknown as in a dropsonde landing on the earth It causes the height integration to be performed from flight level down Discard frames with CRC errors If this box is checked data frames that are marked as having a CRC error are discarded This only applies to AVAPS dropsonde soundings RH Channel The AVAPS Dropsonde based systems use a radiosonde that carries dual relative humidity sensors The firmware in the sonde chooses the humidity value from one of them and the selected channel is reported in the main RH field of the D file The original values for both sensors are reported in additional columns in the file The user can elect to use the sonde chosen value AVAPS selected or either of the original sensor values RH1 or RH2 Set Heights Missing Check this box to cause the height computations to be skipped in cases where the operator does not trust the data to provide for accurate height integration Open File Chooser on Startup If this box is checked a File Chooser dialog will open as soon as aspen is started Otherwise the File menu can be accessed in order to select a file to process April 2006 31 ASPEN USER MANUAL CONFIGURATION Position Interpolation Interval Set the maximum time interval over which the winds can be inte
26. ation parameters used in the processing whereas the CLASS format does not support inclusion of this information CLASS Format The CLASS file starts with a 15 line header section followed by a variable number of data lines The data lines are arranged in fixed width columns A mandatory set of 21 data parameters is reported even though a number of these specifically the quality values are always marked with a missing value indicator The data is reported in the sequence of decreasing pressure i e from the surface upward regardless of the direction of the sounding EOL Format The EOL file starts with a 15 line header section followed by a variable number of data lines The data lines are arranged in fixed width columns A fixed set of 17 data parameters is reported The data is reported in the sequence of decreasing pressure i e from the surface upward regardless of the direction of the sounding NetCDF Section Appendix D netCDF Attributes contains the attributes listing from an ncdump of an Aspen generated netCDF file Note that for legacy compatibilty reasons a number of unecessary variables are included in the netCDF file The global attributes contain a record of the Q C processing options Comma Separated Values CSV The Comma Separated Value file format is used for data interchange between Aspen and other software It is a free form structure with one data record per line and the fields in a reco
27. code for Linux AspenQC uses the same XML configuration file as Aspen located in the ASPENHOME directory Switches Command line switches control the processing and output products from AspenQC usage AspenQC i input sounding file gt e csv lt output csv file gt c class lt output class file gt w wmo lt output wmo file gt n netcdf output netcdf file gt v verbose s config lt config set name gt a csvattributes h help e i the name of the input data file AspenQC will automatically determine the file type and as with Aspen will make assumptions about the type of souding dependent on the file format AVAPS CLASS GLASS MCASS and CSV format files can be processed If this parameter is missing the data are read from standard input e e Generate a CSV format output file e is meant to indicate Excel since CSV files are the best method for transfering data between AspenQC and Excel e c Generate a CLASS format output file e n Generate a netCDF format output file e w Generate a WMO message e v Print verbose status messages as the processing proceeds April 2006 38 ASPEN USER MANUAL ASPENQC e s Specify a config set name to override the one selected by the active tag in the XML configuration file e If a CSV file is being created print the configuration attributes at the beginning of the file Not
28. difying the Q C parameters to match the error characteristics of the sounding data Toggle the display of raw data off and on in order to see which data points are being rejected by the algorithms Toggle the mark points option and use the zoom and pan capabilities freely to investigate the effectiveness of the procedures Stay zoomed in on a region when modifying configuration parameters and use the recompute button to reprocess the sounding so that the new results are displayed immediately in the zoomed region If the sounding system does not report the number of GPS satelittes used in the winds calculation set the GPS satellite threshold to 0 so that winds are not discarded due to a lack of satellites The most frequently adjusted parameters are the the OC Filter Wavelength and the OC Filter Deviation which are used in the filter check and are applied together In this algorithm a smoothed curve is calculated from the data series If the filter wavelength is small the curve will closely follow the data if large the curve will be a very smooth representation of the data The deviation is the amount that a data point is allowed to deviate from the smoothed curve If the difference between the curve and the raw data point is larger than the deviation the data point is discarded The interplay between the amount of smoothing and the allowed deviation allow for wide latitiude in tuning the filter check algorithm The dynamic
29. e that these will not be interpreted or used when a CSV file is used as input to AspenQC e h Print out the usage statement The output format specifiers e c w and n can take an optional file name to which the data will be written If not provided the data will be written to the standard output An example of an AspenQC usage would be AspenQC i classData dat a e classData csv April 2006 39 ASPEN USER MANUAL Input File Types INPUT FILE TYPES Aspen can process sounding data that is provided in the following file formats e NCAR AVAPS GPS Dropsonde D files e NCAR GLASS Upsonde files e NCAR GAUS Upsonde files e NCAR CLASS Upsonde files e NCAR MCASS Upsonde files e Comma Separated Values CSV MS Excel compatible Warning Aspen automatically detects the format of the file that it opens and assumes that the sounding contained is from the associated instrument This can lead to ambiguities if Aspen is used to process a file that it has written For instance if dropsonde data are saved by Aspen in CLASS format and then this file is used as input to Aspen the program will assume that the data are from an upsonde sounding rather than a dropsonde This can lead to erroneous results within Aspen since the characteristics of the sounding system affect the processing procedures Output files can be produced for data products in the following formats Table 3 Output File Types
30. ered series by greater than a specified deviation Configuration Items QC Filter Wavelength QC Filter Deviation April 2006 21 ASPEN USER MANUAL QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES 11 Pressure Smoothing Dn Up P The final smoothing is applied to the pressure data The pressure needs to be smoothed before the pressure monotonic check Configuration Item Final Smoothing 12 Monotonic Pressure Check Dn Up P The pressure trace must change monotonically in order for pressure based searching to be performed The pressure time series is scanned when a point is found which follows an incorrect trend i e decreasing for a dropsonde increasing otherwise it is removed from the series 13 Temperature Dynamic Adjustment Dn T The temperature is adjusted for the time lag related to the sensor time constant The time constant is a function of the sonde ascent rate and the density An empirically determined relation for the sensor time constant as a function of pressure and ascent rate is used The series is first smoothed using the temperature dynamic correction smoothing wavelength This smoothed series is used to compute a time tendency for each data point Each observation is then adjusted by adding to it the product of the time constant and tendency Configuration items Dynamic Correction On Off and Dynamic Correction Wavelength 14 RH Lower Limiting Dn Up RH RH values less than 0 2 are set to 0 2 15 Smoothing Dn Up T RH Wind The seri
31. es the ICAO value for the TEMP message it is likely that all soundings opened during the same run of Aspen should use this value for the ICAO string An immediate save allows the configuration to be updated without having to close that sounding The following table gives a description of the configuration options The case of the configuration item name is critical It must be matched exactly as shown Element name Type Description SetHtsMissing bool Corresponds to the Set heights missing checkbox on the main tab which causes height computations to be skipped DropsondeHitSfc bool Corresponds to the Dropsonde Hit Surface checkbox on the main tab indicationg that the dropsonde sounding terminated with hitting the surface SfcAltUnknown bool Corresponds to the Surface Altitude Unknown checkbox on the main tab which when set causes the upward height computation to be skipped DiscardBadCrcData bool Set true if frames with CRC errors are to be discarded AVAPS dropsondes only ReportObservedPos bool If true the sonde position reported in the input file will be used in place of the winds integrated position Lat and Lon from the input file will go directly into output products and the tabular displays This can be utilized to take advantage of sondes which report GPS positions directly The default is false WindSmoothWL numeric Final smoothing wavelength WindQCWL n
32. es are smoothed using the final smoothing wavelength Configuration Item Final Smoothing 16 RH Lower Limiting Dn Up RH RH values less than 0 2 are set to 0 2 17 Pressure Adjustment Dn P If a surface pressure is specified on the main tab it is proportionally applied to the pressure profile as a function of time Thus the bottom pressure value becomes the specified pressure and the launch pressure is unchanged with a proportional adjustment applied between these points 18 Compute Vertical Velocity Dn Up P The pressure series is first smoothed using the final pressure smoothing wavelength The time tendency of the pressure is then computed at each data point The time differentiated hydrostatic equation is then used to compute the vertical velocity 19 Vertical Velocity Check Dn Up Wind The GPS measured fall velocity is a good discriminator for the quality of the GPS derived horizontal wind If the difference between the hydrostatically determined fall velocity and the GPS measured velocity is greater than the specified limit the horizontal wind point is discarded Configuration item Vertical Velocity Threshold April 2006 22 ASPEN USER MANUAL QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES 20 Create Surface Observation Dn P T RH In order to achieve as accurate a surface pressure reading as possible a procedure is applied which attempts to account for the distance the dropsonde fell to the surface after the last data point was reported Empi
33. f the monitor Press the Esc key to bring the monitor back to the normal configuration QC Raw The QC and Raw buttons select the dataset s to be displayed in the graph The two datasets can be displayed simultaneously Conversely if neither button is selected no data will be displayed Levels Pressing the Levels buttons causes the computed levels to be overlaid on the graph Moving the mouse pointer over a level symbol will cause the level type to be displayed Standard levels are displayed as triangles and other levels are displayed as circles Different levels types contain different sets of parameters For instance the standard levels report temperature moisture winds and altitude On the T RH plot the standard levels will appear for any vertical axis choice If the axis is set to altitude however the significant levels will not be shown here since they are not reporting altitude Also if a particular field is missing from a level it will not be overlaid on a trace For instance if a standard level does not have a temperature data value it will not appear on the temperature trace Grids MarkPts Grid overlays may be selected from the drop down list above the graph Marking of the data points can be toggled on and off using the MarkPts push button The four buttons on the far right select the parameters to be plotted along the horizontal axis T RH Selects temperature and relative humidity Speed Dir Selects wi
34. h They become either the bottom or top point in the sounding depending on the sounding direction The QC procedures assume that these launch observations are accurate so they will not be changed If the launch observations do need to be modified the Launch Parameters box in the upper left corner of the Main Tab has entries that allow the user to override them Enter the new values into the boxes Use the Clear button to revert to the original values Be sure to hit Recompute Setting the QC parameters The QC parameters which control the operation of the various QC algorithms can be modified by the user However only experienced users who understand the effects of the parameters should do this See the Quality Control Procedures section for a complete description April 2006 6 ASPEN USER MANUAL POST PROCESSING ADJUSTMENT The QC parameters are organized in named sets with one of them designated as the currently active set The parameters in the active set are the ones used for succeeding analyses by Aspen The active set name is displayed on the right side of the status bar at the bottom of the Aspen application window It is visible for every Aspen tab Dropsonde Surface E wneters Pressure mb 962 9 Clear Downward Altitude m 0 0 Clear 80 Low altitude m EE Active configuration name dropsonde The initial installation of Aspen provides a configuration set named dropsonde and designates it as active
35. ill not be able to run and the file will need to be repaired or restored The file AspenOriginal xml is provided as a copy of the orginally distributed configuration file and is located in the Aspen installation directory typically c Program Files NCAR Aspen In the worst case this file can simply be copied over aspen xml note that the file name case is significant This will restore Aspen to the default configuration parameters but all changes or additions that have been made to the configuration will be lost If the aspen xml file is only slightly corrupted it may be possible to correct the error with a text editor A simple way to locate a syntax error is to open aspen xml in Internet Explorer which provides structured viewing of XML files Internet Explorer will indicate lines that do not parse correctly and then a standard text editor may be used to fix minor problems April 2006 33 ASPEN USER MANUAL BATCHASPEN BatchAspen BatchAspen is a separate application that is used to apply the Aspen Q C procedures to a collection of sounding files The user selects the data products to be created The program then iterates over the list of files placing the results in a specified destination directory BatchAspen shares an exact copy of the Q C processing algorithms that are used by Aspen so that identical results for both programs can be guaranteed Starting BatchAspen and Selecting Files di Start the application
36. ing of all of the soundings currently being analyzed by Aspen Clicking on the file name will bring that sounding to the front of the display Toolbar The Toolbar provides buttons that can be clicked instead of selecting some of the entries found on the drop down menus As with the File menu the buttons that are enabled depend upon which tab is currently selected April 2006 17 ASPEN USER MANUAL QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES Quality Control Procedures One of the main purposes of Aspen is to apply quality control algorithms to a sounding These algorithms attempt to systematically detect data points that are likely to be incorrect and remove them from the QC data set The processing begins with a copy of the original raw observations In most cases all parameters are considered separately The main exception to this is the handling of the wind observations In this case the wind speed and direction are separated into u and v components and the QC tests are individually applied However if one of the two components fails a test then both components as well as the speed and direction are removed from the QC data There are other QC tests that depend upon the relationship between two variables in some algorithms the processing of a given parameter requires input from another parameter For instance the GPS measured velocity is used as a discriminator for the horizontal wind observations In another case the dynamic adjustment procedure
37. le time time time long name time time units seconds since 1970 01 01 00 00 00 UTC time missing value 999 f time FillValue 999 float pres time pres long name pres pres units hPa pres missing value 999 f pres field type P pres FillValue 999 f float tdry time tdry long name tdry tdry units degC tdry missing value 999 f tdry field type T tdry FillValue 999 f float dp time dp long name dp dp units degC dp missing value 999 f dp field type T d dp FillVvalue 999 f float rh time rh long name rh rh units percent rh missing value 999 f rh field type rh rh FillValue 999 f float u_wind time u wind long name u wind u_wind units m s u_wind missing value 999 f u_wind field type uwind u wind FillValue 999 f April 2006 52 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX D NETCDF ATTRIBUTES float float float float float float float float float float float April 2006 v_wind time v wind long name v wind v_wind units m s v_wind missing value 999 f v_wind field type vwind v_wind FillValue 999 E 7 wspd time wspd long name wspd wspd units m s wspd missing value 999 f wspd field type wspd wspd FillValue 999 f wdir time wdir long name wdir wdir uni
38. n the processing hit the _ tees button BatchAspen will start processing each file starting at the beginning of the list A status indicator will appear next to each file with a yellow star denoting the file currently being processed A check mark indicates that the file was successfully processed an unhappy face denotes a file that could not be processed af C Program FilesNCARSAspen S ample Data AFRES4D19980824_053457 2 af C Program Files NCAR Aspen S ample Data KAFRESYD19980824 061114 1 af C Program Files NCAR Aspen S ample Data amp amp FRESSD19980824 111047 2 Y Y C Program Filesi NCAR Aspens ample DatatAFRES1D19980824_114019 3 C Program Files NCAR Aspen S ample DatatAFRES1D19980824_114935 4 Z C Program Files NCAR Aspeni Docsi Reade pdf 4 C Program Files NCAR Aspeni Sample Data KAFRESYD19980824 125547 1 af C Program Files NCARAspen S ample Data AFRESYD19980824 132116 2 fai C Program Files NCA4RAspensS ample Data 4FRES D19980824_ 132948 1 C Program Files NCAR Aspen S ample Data 4FRES 4 D19980824_151150 1 C Program Files NCAR Aspen S ample Data amp FRES SD13380824 154642 1 C Program Files NCAR Aspens ample Data 4FRES 4 D19980824_155446 4 C Program Files NCAR Aspen S ample Data 4FRES 4 D19980824_170005 1 C Program Files NCAR Aspens ample Data 4FRES 4 D19980824_171034 2 C Program Files NCAR Aspens ample DataKAFRESYD19980824 174011 3 C Program Files NCAR Aspen S ample Data 4FRES4 D19980824_215301 2 C Pr
39. nd speed and direction Sats Dz Selects number of satellites and ascent speed Pres Alt Selects pressure and altitude The Save button on the far right is used to save the graphic image as a PNG or JPEG file PNG provides better compression and much higher quality graphics presentation for the line drawings of Aspen and is the preferred file format The pixel dimensions of the saved graphic file can be specified in the configuration options April 2006 11 ASPEN USER MANUAL TAB DISPLAYS Other plotting options are available by holding down the right mouse button over the plot Skew T Tab Aspen D1 99910161 109 cms p a SI File Tools view Window Help la x SESE 8 D139910161109 cms CASES 99 Maln Site GLASS 1 50 60 120 130 140 150 S x Ee X R A Mk eat Ve N a LUN p X 4 Max Unzm 300 10 I a Print AA KS SELE lt Y K Seve a UE ex lt DL NAC 600 Z gt gt Z A N D nn BESSE Aspen v2 3 JS Sep 2002 U3 zS VIC Ready Active configuratior name cropsonde A standard skew T log P plot is accessed in the Skew T tab Zooming maximizing printing and saving of the plot are available in the same manner as for the XY Graph The right mouse button brings up the same menu of plot options as well Meteorologists are accustomed to seeing a particular aspect ratio on skew T plots and thus a consistent shape
40. ng the aircraft The pressure temperature and RH sensors require a significant time period to get close to the ambient conditions This equilibration time is calculated to be 7 times the time constant of the sensor and data within this period is discarded The temperature time constant is dependent on the ventilation rate which is the fall rate and the air density Right at the dropsonde launch the pressure sensor is undergoing extreme changes and cannot be used to determine the dropsonde fall rate For this reason a theoretical fall rate is calculated which is based on the force balance between the parachute drag and the mass of the sonde This fall rate has been shown to be reasonably accurate The aircraft measured temperature and pressure or the first observed values in the sounding are used to calculate the density and the temperature time constant at launch is computed using these parameters The ambient equilibration region for pressure is set equal to the temperature region so that pressure and temperature have the same data coverage at the top of the sounding An empirically determined formulation for the RH time constant is used April 2006 20 ASPEN USER MANUAL QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES 5 Apply fixed offsets Dn Up P T RH Fixed offsets can be added to the measurement Configuration Item Offset to Add 6 Limit Check Dn Up P T RH Wind Absolute bounds checks are used to discard measurements falling outside of hard limits
41. nu commands will be familiar to anyone who has previously used Windows based programs Only the Tools Menu contains commands unique to Aspen File Menu The File menu contains command choices that are generally applicable to all tabs within Aspen There are cases when a command cannot be used with a particular tab For instance when the Main tab is selected the File Save command is not enabled since there is no data product associated with this tab The following commands are found under the File menu Open Open a sounding file and begin the processing Close Close the sounding Configuration Open the configuration editor available only when no soundings are open Save Save data products associated with the tab Print Print the tab The output print format will depend on the tab type Print Preview Preview the print output Print Setup Configure the printer At the bottom of the File menu is a list of the most recently analyzed files Sometimes it is convenient to go here to reopen a sounding that you have recently examined See the Configuration section for an explanation of the configuration management procedures Tools Menu The Tools menu provides access to commands associated with the QC parameters when a sounding is open See the Configuration section for their description View Menu The display of toolbar and status lines is controlled in the View menu Window Menu The Window menu contains a list
42. of the various isopleths To maintain the correct aspect ratio when zooming choose a zoom box whose lower left and upper right corners share a common temperature i e they share a common diagonal An example of a correct zooming rectangle is superimposed on the figure above April 2006 12 ASPEN USER MANUAL TAB DISPLAYS Levels Tab BEE O pile Tods view Window Help z isl x zju amp Click on a level to disable enable it Disabled levels are highlighted in red Time s Pres mb Tdry C RH Spd m s Dir deg Alt m 2771 2 168 7 61 8 16 2673 9 172 0 198 9 GDL Temperature Wind Shear Above 247 GDL Wind Speed 2481 0 53 7 251 Maximim Wind 2481 0 198 9 53 7 251 12184 GDL Temperature 2401 9 211 2 52 6 21 Wind Shear Below 2299 9 229 1 49 4 248 11270 GDL Temperature 2151 6 256 8 46 1 34 GDL RH 2070 5 272 7 42 7 20 GDL RH 1877 4 313 2 35 6 41 GDL Temperature 1799 3 330 2 32 0 21 GDL Wind Speed 1544 0 390 8 25 4 234 GDL Wind Direction 1343 8 444 6 22 2 243 GDL Temperature 1250 7 468 4 14 1 13 GDL Wind Direction 1123 6 501 0 17 6 233 Ready Active configuration name drepsonde The Levels tab displays the computed levels which have been derived from the QC data set The surface and standard levels are highlighted in blue These are the levels that are coded in parts A and C of the WMO message The levels data can be previewed and printed from the File menu The levels li
43. ogram Files NCAR Aspens ample Data 4FRES4 D19980824 234012 2 During the processing of each file the status box at the top of BatchAspen provides a running display of the Q C processing steps April 2006 36 ASPEN USER MANUAL BATCHASPEN When processing is underway the Process button changes to i d To stop the processing before the end of the list has been reached press Abort BatchAspen will stop when the processing of the current file has completed Q C Parameters BatchAspen uses the same configuration scheme as Aspen which is documented fully in the Configuration section As with Aspen activating the File gt Configure menu item will display the configuration management interface The configuration set that is designated as active is used by both Aspen and BatchAspen This may take up to several minutes on a slow machine April 2006 37 ASPEN USER MANUAL ASPENQC AspenQC AspenQC is a version of Aspen that performs the Q C and message coding functions but does not provide a graphical user interface Therefore it can be run from shell scripts or the comand line to process a sounding data file in a standalone mode The same Q C and coding algorithms used in Aspen are incorporated into AspenQC A Windows executable file AspenQC exe is provided in the Aspen Windows distribution AspenQC can be compiled and run under Linux Contact NCAR in order to obtain the source
44. on parameter When the Email button is pressed the default Windows mail client e g Outlook or Outlook Express is started and the user is presented with an email editing window If the message is being mailed to an automatic processing system such as the NWS email GTS ingest gateway then the mail client should be configured to send in plain text format and to no wrap the text lines Group or alias entries can also be made in the client address book e g GTS to serve as the message recipient address The format for the WMO message is very exacting and there may be times when Aspen does not get the coding quite right The buttons at the top left of the WMO tab allow the user to modify the WMO message if necessary Use the mouse to select the code group to be edited and press the appropriate editing button April 2006 14 ASPEN USER MANUAL TAB DISPLAYS Some code groups such as the abbreviated header the 61616 group and the 62626 group contain more than the nominal 5 characters To select these groups for editing you must click on the left end of the code group There are a number of administrative entries in the WMO message that are not derived from the levels data These are items such as the abbreviated header and information in the 61616 and 62626 groups This information is managed on the Comm tab When a field is changed on the Comm tab the WMO message is adjusted accordingly If the sounding analysis is recomputed from
45. on input The Units lines documents the units of each data field Note that the units shown here must be adhered to Aspen will not make units conversions At least the time and pressure fields must be provided Units sec mb deg C m s deg deg deg m deg C m s m s m s April 2006 49 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX B FILE FORMATS e The Data lines follow after all of the preceeding records Some other rules apply e Long strings should be enclosed in quotes e Don t include commas in strings e Capitalization is not important e The data series must be ordered in time e Time tags less than zero will be ignored e Don t use reserved strings in the first field of a line e Fields must come before Data e Missing data are simply represented by empty fields i e two commas in succession or a trailing comma on the end of a line indicating that the last field is missing The following demonstrates a small CSV file note that the line breaks are not found in the actual file FileFormat CSV Year 2001 Month 08 Day 01 Hour 17 Minute 58 Second 34 Pressure 57 6 units mb Temperature 59 9 units deg e RH units Speed 7 9 units m s Direction 92 0 units deg Latitude 30 9909 units deg Longitude 119 5005 units deg Altitude 19610 0 units m Ascending false Fields Time Pressure Temperature RH Speed Direction Latitude Longitude Altitude Dewpoint Uwnd
46. opSondeMass numeric Dropsonde mass grams PosInterpSpan numeric Maximum time span in seconds over which the position integration will be interpolated CallSign string Immediate call sign for TEMPSHIP and TEMPMOBIL messages BSN string Immediate Block Station Number for TEMP messages April 2006 45 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX A CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS Element name Type Description TempMsgType numeric Temp message type O TEMP 1 TEMPSHIP 2 TEMPMOBIL TempApendNNNN Bool Set true if an NNNN should be appended to the TEMP message when it is saved in a file This terminator is required by some telecommunication gateways RHchoice numeric AVAPS RH channel selection 0 AVAPS selected 1 RH1 2 RH2 ExcludeAbrHdr bool True if the abreviated header should be excluded from the TEMPDROP message PlotPixelsX numeric Default plot X dimension in pixels PlotPixelsY numeric Default plot Y dimension in pixels PlotFileFormat numeric Default graphics file output format 0 PNG 1 JPG ACtype numeric Immediate Dropsonde aircraft type 0 C130H 1 C130J Use only for the automated file transfer method for Huricane Hunters BaudRateIndex numeric Immediate serial port baud rate selector for Hurricane Hunter C130H aircraft 0 300 1 lt 1200 2 2400 3 l
47. ormat 0 PlotPixelsX 1000 PlotPixelsY PosInterpSpan 60 PresBuddySlope 2 PresOffset 0 PresOutlier 10 PresQCDev 3 PresQCWL 10 PresSmoothWL 5 QCSaveDir C tmp RHBuddySlope 20 700 HOffset 0 HOutlier 10 QCDev 3 HOCWL 10 HSmoothWL 5 Hchoice TESCH RawSaveDir C SetHtsMissing 0 SfcAltUnknown 1 SfcAltitude 0 SkewTPlotSaveDir C TdryBuddySlope 3 TdryDynCor 0 TdryOffset 0 TdryOutlier 10 TdryQCDev 3 TdryQCWL 10 TdrySmoothWL 5 TempMsgType 0 WindBuddySlope 5 WindDynCor 0 WindOutlier 10 WindQCDev 3 WindQCWL 10 WindSats 3 WindSmoothWL 10 WindVVdelta 2 5 WmoSaveDir C XYPlotSaveDir C tmp DH DH DH DH r DH r DH DH ER 2 APPENDIX D NETCDF ATTRIBUTES 55
48. processing needs to be modified the user can change the QC parameters and reprocess the data as many times as necessary An extensive series of QC algorithms are applied to the data These algorithms typically have one or two parameters that may be adjusted by the user if the default values are not suitable for a particular sounding The user can save the modified options so that when a new sounding is opened the initial analysis will use the customized QC parameters Aspen can have up to six sounding files open at the same time This makes it convenient to compare soundings Aspen is designed so that its operation requires minimal user intervention However there are a few concepts that are very helpful in understanding the behavior of the program Aspen maintains two separate data sets the raw data and the QC data The QC At the start of processing the QC data is an exact copy of the raw process data The algorithms are then successively applied to the QC data As mainly the processing proceeds data points that fail each test are removed removes from QC data set At the end of this process a final smoothing is suspect applied to the remaining QC data It is important to understand that data points nearly all of the QC steps simply remove unreliable points from the raw data set The dynamic adjustments and the final smoothing are the only steps where the observed data values are actually modified April 2006 1 ASPEN USER MANUAL
49. rd integration leads to a launch altitude close to the surface altitude and likewise the upward integration is close to the launch altitude then there is confidence in the launch altitude If there are significant discrepancies the launch altitude is probably incorrect Additionally differences in the diagnostics can signify a large systematic error in the variables used in the height integration i e pressure temperature or humidity If the surface altitude can be determined for a launch which terminated on land this value can be entered into the surface altitude box so that the upward integration can be computed The final item affecting the height calculation is the Launch Altitude entry in the Launch Parameters box in the upper left corner of the Main tab If another source of the launch altitude is available it may be entered here in order to override the aircraft supplied value The Clear button can be used to remove the override It should be pointed out that the heights are mainly relevant to the coding of the WMO messages where they are used to report the altitudes of standard pressure surfaces Even if the heights are unusable the WMO message will still contain a very accurate report of the sounding based on pressure The upshot is to set heights to missing when in doubt rather than report erroneous values Launch parameters The launch parameters are the surface or aircraft flight level observation made at the time of launc
50. rd separated by commas A CSV file can be read directly into Microsoft Excel and the data will be correctly organized in the spreadsheet For input to Aspen certain conventions must be followed within the CSV file Each line begins with an identifier followed by one or more fields The order of the lines is generally not important within the following guidelines April 2006 48 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX B FILE FORMATS The first line must be FileFormat CSV After the first line the launch time must be provided on lines as follows Year 2001 Month 08 Day 01 Hour 17 Minute 58 Second 34 The launch observation data may be provided in lines labeled with the parameter name To designate a dropsonde sounding include a line Ascending false A Fields line defines the data fields and their order for the succeeding Data lines Aspen output CSV files will contain a fairly large number of fields e g Fields Time Pressure Temperature RH Speed Direction Latitude Longitude Altitude Dewpoint Uwnd Vwnd Ascent For an input CVS file to be read properly by Aspen the following data field conventions must be followed Fields Aspen utilization time These are required input data fields pressure rh These data fields will be utilized 1f provided rhl rh2 speed direction latitude longitude altitude ascent sats gpsalt others Other data fields will be ignored
51. rical estimates of this distance are used to extrapolate the last surface pressure measurement to the surface The last temperature and RH are simply duplicated for the surface measurement since the distance is generally on the order of 5 meters These fabricated measurements of pressure temperature and RH are appended to the data series 21 Winds Dynamic Adjustment Dn Up Wind Each wind component is adjusted with the formula Unew Uobs du dt dz dt g The wind component series is first smoothed using the winds dynamic correction smoothing wavelength for the component This smoothed series is used to compute a time tendency for each data point The observation is then adjusted according to the formula using the previously calculated vertical velocity for dz dt Configuration items Dynamic Adjustment On Off and Dynamic Correction Wavelength 22 Compute Altitude Dn Up The hydrostatic equation is integrated from the surface upwards For dropsondes the same computation may be made from the launch altitude downward See the Post Processing Adjustment section for a description of dropsonde height computations The downward height integration requires both a starting altitude and a starting pressure If the pressure at launch time for a dropsonde is not available a common situation on many aircraft the first raw pressure point from the dropsonde is used as the launch pressure but only for the purpose of height computation This unwarran
52. rom this dialog Hitting the Restore Defaults button will restore the entire set of configuration items for the selected set restoring them to their default values The Sample Configuration Set There is a special configuration set named sample provided with Aspen This set cannot be activated deleted or edited It is available as a default set that can be used as the source when creating a new configuration set Remember that within Aspen the configuration editor is only available from the File gt Cofigure menu when no soundings are open When soundings are open in Aspen the options for the currently active configuration set can be edited from the Tools gt Options menu Changing the QC Parameters In order to configure Aspen to match your particular requirements the configuration items i e parameters within a configuration set must be properly specified This can be initiated from either the configuration management menu File gt Configure gt Edit Options when no files are open or from the options menu Tools gt Options A tabbed property sheet will open containing two tabs The Quality Control Parameters tab is used to configure quality control parameters April 2006 28 ASPEN USER MANUAL CONFIGURATION Quality Control Parameters Other Options Pressure Temperature RH Winds iv D Iw Dynamic Correction 20 gt gt gt s ho s Dynamic correction wavelength 10 std dev po std dev
53. rpolated for the position integration calculation If the gap in winds is greater than this interval the winds will not be interpolated and the position integration will stop Plot dimensions pixels Specify the X and Y dimensions in pixels for graphics output files Default plot file Choose either PNG or JPG as the default choice for the output graphics file format The user can also choose the file type at save time PNG is the recommended format Saving Changes and Restoring Defaults When the user closes a sounding in which the QC parameters have been changed a dialog box asks if these parameters should be saved as the processing defaults All soundings opened after this time will be processed using these options The Tools menu provides a command Tools tRestore Defaults which can be used to restore the options to initial system defaults Thus the customized parameters will revert to the initial installation defaults The user may also revert the QC parameters to the initial installation defaults before opening any soundings This is done via the File Configure Restore Defaults button available only when no soundings have been opened When in doubt about the proper values of the OC parameters restore the defaults April 2006 32 ASPEN USER MANUAL CONFIGURATION Corrupted Configurations As mentioned above the configuration information is stored in the aspen xml file If the configuration file becomes corrupted Aspen w
54. section for further description fal Avaps Editor D19991001 093756 1 Y File Tools View Window Help la x osa 00 sile Reported Override MEAM ITC Verify the sounding by examining all of the tab selections Read the Verify Post Processing Adjustment section for important guidelines on doing this After examining the sounding the user may decide that one or more of the processing parameters should be adjusted The most commonly altered processing parameters can be Recompute changed on the Main tab When they have been set to the if necessary desired values press the Recompute button on the Main Tab to reanalyze the sounding using the new parameters The processing status will again be displayed in the lower left status box When completed the displays in each tab will be updated with the new results Be sure to press the Recompute button after changing the processing parameters otherwise the new parameters will not be applied to the sounding To analyze another sounding open another data file Next Sounding using the FileflOpen menu Up to six soundings can be open at one time Use the Window menu to choose which sounding is displayed April 2006 4 ASPEN USER MANUAL POST PROCESSING ADJUSTMENT Post Processing Adjustment Once a sounding has been processed by Aspen the results must be examined carefully Frequently some parameters will need to be adjusted to compensate for characteristics of the data
55. sting may be sorted by any of the variables by clicking on the desired column heading Clicking a second time in the same heading reverses the order of the sorting It is typical to sort either by time or pressure both of which will give similar results In certain cases the Aspen operator may wish to prevent particular levels from being coded in the WMO message Clicking on a level in the Levels Tab will mark a level so that it is not coded Excluded levels are marked with a red background Click again on the level to toggle its status back for normal coding Not all variables are recorded for each level This is because each level type is used to report only specific variable in the coded message If a variable is not reported for a given level type it is not calculated for that level April 2006 13 ASPEN USER MANUAL TAB DISPLAYS modified groups 0 Print Save Email Wt 34963 20131 09019 PPNS 06301 88591 50762 00981 26514 22720 24047 44544 24096 66234 25092 09019 Active config upsonde config dir C Documents and Settings martinc Application Data The WMO tab displays the WMO message which has been coded from the levels infor mation It can be previewed and printed from the File menu and also saved as a text file using the Save and Print buttons The WMO message can be emailed from within Aspen by pressing the Email button on this tab The email recipient is specified by the TempEmailAddress configurati
56. t 4800 4 9600 5 19200 6 38400 CommPortIndex numeric Immediate serial com port selector for Hurricane Hunter C130H aircraft O coml l lt com2 7 com8 ACagency string Immediate agency designator in the TEMPDROP 61616 group MissionStorm string Immediate storm designator in the TEMPDROP 61616 group MissionId string Immediate mission id designator in the TEMPDROP 61616 group IcaoIndex numeric Immediate index of ICAO designator 0 user defined 1 KNHC 2 KBIX 3 KISX 4 KHIK 5 KTRR For TEMPDROP messages AbrHdrOvr string Immediate User defined overid for the abreviated header For TEMPDROP messages AtcfId String Immediate the ATCF cyclone or storm system April 2006 46 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX A CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS Element name Type Description identifier OptiIcao numeric Immediate user defined optional ICAO identifier For TEMPDROP messages UpsondeAbrHdr string Immediate abbreviated header code e g UUNA15 for upsonde messages UpsondeICAO string Immediate ICAO code e g KWBC for upsonde messages TempEmailAddress String Immediate email address that TEMP messages should be sent to DataDir string Directory where input data files are located WmoSaveDir string Directory to save WMO messages in QCSaveDir string Directory to save QC data in RawSaveDir string Directory to save raw data in XYPlotSa
57. ta e long name theta e theta e units K theta e missing value 999 f theta e FillValue 999 f float theta v time theta v long name theta v theta v units K theta v missing value 999 f theta v FillValue 999 f float lat time lat long name north latitude lat units degrees lat missing value 999 f lati Fr Value lt 999 f lat valid range 90 f 90 f float lon time lon long name east longitude lon units degrees lon missing value 999 f lon FillValue 999 f lon valid range 180 f 180 f float alt time alt long name altitude above MSL alt units meters alt missing value 999 f alt FillValue 999 f global attributes bad value flag 999 f zebra platform class history ClassNcFile AvapsEditorVersion 2 3 1 SoundingDescription D20010801 175834 3 011118097 AAVAPS Flight Test EAFB Flight Test 3 Lockheed ER 2 NASA 809 ACagency AF001 ACtype 0 AbrHdrOvr 0 AutoFile 1 April 2006 54 ASPEN USER MANUAL April 2006 mo o D mm I BSN 99999 BaudRateIndex 2 CallSign CALL ChuteArea 676 CommPortIndex 0 DoLevels 1 DoQC 4 DoWMO 1 DropSondeMass 395 DropsondeHitSfc 1 ExcludeAbrHdr 0 IcaoIndex 1 MissionId TRAIN MissionStorm WXWXA OptIcao W PlotFileF
58. table Notice that the pressure of the current scroll position is displayed as the scrollbar is moved The Print and Print Preview commands on the File menu are available for the Raw and QC tabs The preview can be used to determine on which pages a particular range of data points falls The Print command is used to print either the whole table or selected pages The complete table for a sounding will range from 8 pages drops from 700 mb to upwards of 50 pages upsondes to lt 100 mb The Save command allows the data to be saved in the NCAR CLASS or netCDF formats The CLASS format produces an ASCII text file that can easily be imported into spreadsheets The launch observations are shown as the first line in the Raw and QC data displays They will not be modified by the QC processing but override values can be specified by the user April 2006 9 ASPEN USER MANUAL TAB DISPLAYS XY Graph Tab Aspen D199910161 109 113 lol xi File Tools View Wincow Hep la x la 2 1 Time Pres Alt QC Raw Levels Max Print LnZm MarkPts No Grid TFH SpcLD r Sats Dz Pres Alt Save Temperature and Relative Humidity versus Time D199919161109 cras TASES 99 Main Slte GLASS 150 Aspen V2 3 0 05 Sep 2002 03 4 UTC ac RH OC Temaerature Temperature CJ 60 0 43 30 T 20 10 n 10 4 fi n 1 1 T T T T FLU TT T TT TI T OT OT Leg IT T T T T T T T T T ro T 4000 je 3500 7C t
59. ted assumption can lead to significant height errors if the raw sonde pressure data is late or inaccurate 23 Compute Position Dn Up The horizontal winds are used to integrate the sonde location from the initial launch position If a time gap of greater than maximum position integration interval a configuration parameter occurs in the wind measurements the integration terminates The position integration requires an initial position to start the integration Similarly an initial wind speed and direction at the launch point are used in the integration If these are not available Aspen will use the first Q C wind speed and direction as the launch point value This unjustified assumption thus assumes a constant wind profile at launch in the absence of a wind measurement at the launch point Configuration Item Position Interpolation Guidelines for Adjusting QC Parameters The supplied default values for the Aspen Q C parameters in general produce excellent results However there may be times when a group of soundings have peculiar error characteristics and the Q C paramaters need to be modified in order to produce better discrimnation against outliers Some tips for adjusting the configuration parameters are given here The user should carefully read and understand the descriptions of the Q C April 2006 23 ASPEN USER MANUAL QUALITY CONTROL PROCEDURES algorithms given in the preceeding section this will provide the best guidance on mo
60. the dropsonde Configuration sets A family of configuration items is collected in a configuration set Configuration sets are assigned names and a named set is chosen as the currently active one to be used the next time that Aspen is run In this way users can create configuration sets that are tailored to a particular instrument environment or field program and switch between them as needed The Active Set At any time one of the named configuration sets is designated as the active set This means that any further processing with Aspen or BatchAspen will use the configuration items from the active set It is critical that the user verify that the correct set has been designated as active when processing soundings A user interface is provided within Aspen and BatchAspen for manipulating the Aspen configuration This is divided into two activities The first is the management of the configuration sets creating deleting and activating a set The second is modification of the configuration items within a selected set Note that within Aspen the management of the configuration sets can only be initiated from the File menu when no soundings are currently open Configuration items for any named set may be modified at this time also However configuration items for the currently active set may also be modified when soundings are open within Aspen aspen xml The configuration information is stored in XML format in a file named aspen xml
61. tion Management Select a configuration set dropsonde Activate Currently active configuration set dropsonde Change active configuration set to the selected set Set as active Delete Delete the selected configuration set t cannot be the currently active set Delete New Create a new configuration set initialized from the selected set Enter the new set name in the box below New Name Create Options restore the default values or edit the options within the selected configuration set Restore Defaults Edit Options Ok 27 ASPEN USER MANUAL CONFIGURATION The selection drop down box at the top of the dialog is used to select the named configuration set that all other operations will reference The selected set can be activated deleted or edited using other buttons in the dialog To create a new configuration set select an existing set to be used a source set enter a name in the box and hit the Create button When all configuration editing actions are finished hit the Ok button to save them or the Cancel button to discard the changes The actual configuration items for the selected configuration set can be edited by hitting the Edit button This will bring up a dialog from which the quality control parameters and other options can be modified See the Changing the QC Parameters section below for details on modifying the configuration items f
62. ts degree wdir missing value 999 f wdir field type wdir wdir FillValue 999 E Z dz time dz long name dz dz units m s dz missing value 999 f dz FillValue 999 f range time range long name range range units km range missing value 999 f range FillValue 999 f gp time qp long name qp qp units hPa qp missing value 999 f qp FillValue 999 f gt time gt long name gt gt units degC qt missing value 999 f qt FillValue 999 f qrh time qrh long name qrh qrh units percent qrh missing value 999 f qrh FillValue 999 f gu time qu long name qu qu units m s qu missing value 999 f qu FillValue 999 f qv time qv long name qv qv units m s qv missing value 999 f qv FillValue 999 f qwind time qwind long name qwind qwind units m s 53 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX D NETCDF ATTRIBUTES qwind missing value 999 f qwind FillValue 999 f float mr time mr long name mr mr units gram kg mr missing value 999 f mr FillValue 999 f float vt time vt long name vt vt units degC vt missing value 999 f vt FillValue 999 f float theta time theta long name theta theta units K theta missing value 999 f theta FillValue 999 f float theta_e time the
63. umeric Filter check smoothing wavelength April 2006 43 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX A CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS Element name Type Description WindDynCor bool Enable dynamic correction WindDynCorWL numeric The wavelength used when smoothing the wind data prior to calculating the derivative used in the dynamic correction WindBuddySlope numeric Buddy check slope limit WindQCDev numeric Filter check deviation limit WindOutlier numeric Outlier check number of standard dev limit WindSats numeric Minimum number of GPS satellites required in wind solution WindVVdelta numeric Vertical velocity check limit PresSmoothWL numeric Final smoothing wavelength PresQCWL numeric Filter check smoothing wavelength PresBuddySlope numeric Buddy check slope limit PresQCDev numeric Filter check deviation limit PresOutlier numeric Outlier check number of standard dev limit PresOffset numeric Offset correction TdryQCWL numeric Filter check smoothing wavelength TdryDynCor bool Enable dynamic correction TdryDynCorWL numeric The wavelength used when smoothing the temperature data prior to calculating the derivative used in the dynamic correction TdryOCDev numeric Filter check deviation limit TdryOutlier numeric Outlier check number of standard dev limit TdryOffset numeric Offset correction Tdr
64. veDir string Directory to save XY plot graphics in SkewTPlotSaveDir string Directory to save Skew t plot graphics in BatchSaveDir string For BatchAspen use defines th diretory that output files will be written to BatchSaveRawCLS bool For BatchAspen use set tru to save the raw data in a CLASS format file BatchSaveQCCLS bool For BatchAspen use set tru to save the Q C data in a CLASS format file BatchSaveRawCDF bool For BatchAspen use set tru to save the raw data in a netCDF format file BatchSaveQCCDF bool For BatchAspen use set tru to save the Q C data in a netCDF format file BatchSaveRawCSV bool For BatchAspen use set tru to save the raw data in a CSV format file BatchSaveQCCSV bool For BatchAspen use set tru to save the Q C data in a CSV format file BatchSaveWMO bool For BatchAspen use set tru to save the WMO message in a text file Table 4 Configuration Parameters April 2006 47 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX B FILE FORMATS Appendix B File formats An overview of the output file formats is given here The file structures are sraightforward and examination of the files will provide most of the documentation on their formats Note that the file formats are not complete i e one format will contain information that another format does not support Thus the CSV and netCDF formats can document the configur
65. yBuddySlope numeric Buddy check slope limit TdrySmoothWL numeric Final smoothing wavelength RHSmoothWL numeric Final smoothing wavelength RHOCWL numeric Filter check smoothing wavelength April 2006 44 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX A CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS Element name Type Description RHBuddySlope numeric Buddy check slope limit RHOC Dev numeric Filter check deviation limit RHOutlier numeric Outlier check number of standard dev limit RHOffset numeric Offset correction TdryLevelDelta numeric Threshold value for GDL determination on temperature RHLevelDelta numeric Threshold value for GDL determination on RH WspdLevelDelta numeric Threshold value for GDL determination on wind speed Wspd850LevelDelta numeric Threshold value for GDL determination on windspeed below 850 mb Applies only to dropsondes WdirLevelDelta numeric Threshold value for GDL determination on wind direction TropSmoothWL numeric The wavelength used for smoothing of the temperatur tim series befor calculation of tropopause levels DoQC bool True to perform quality control processing DoLevels bool True to calculate levels DoWMO bool True to create the coded messag AutoFile bool True to enable of file chooser when aspen starts ChuteArea numeric Dropsonde parachute cross section area cm Dr
66. ype numeric gt lt current gt 10 000000 lt current gt lt default gt 10 0 lt default gt lt option gt lt option immediate true name IcaoIndex type numeric gt lt current gt 1 000000 lt current gt lt default gt 1 lt default gt lt option gt lt set gt lt set name dropsonde gt lt set gt lt aspenConfig gt Thus the Aspen configuration contains one entry lt active gt designating which named configuration set is active followed by one or more named configuration sets lt set gt This is particularly easy if the the file is examined with an XML capable browser such as Internet Explorer April 2006 42 ASPEN USER MANUAL APPENDIX A CONFIGURATION PARAMETERS Each configuration set contains a list of configuration options lt option gt with the current and default values for each option Each option has a designated type e bool boolean with a value of either true or false e numeric A floating point numeric value e string A text string An option may also be marked with immediate true to effect an immediate save of the option when it is changed It is useful for some options to be saved immediately after they are changed before closing the sounding in Aspen so that when the next sounding is analyzed it will immediately use the new version of the option For instance if the dropsonde operator on the Hurricane Hunter aircraft opens a sounding and then chang

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