This file describes data currently available to our work group on 8 mm tape. The wind data analysis fields have been extracted from the myriad of data products available from the NCEP/NCAR Global Reanalysis Project data assimilation, model run and model forecast. The data set includes u and v winds and geopotential height at 6 hour intervals from 1985 - 1997 for the following pressure levels: 1000 mb, 925 mb, 850 mb, 700 mb, 600 mb and 500 mb. The data is on a lat/ lon grid at 2.5 degree resolution, with the origin at 0 E, 90 N.
Monthly tar files are stored on two 8 mm tapes. (Directions for using the tape drive are found here.)
Each monthly tar file,entitled yymm.pgbfoo.tar, contains the following files:
The files are in GRIB (Grid in Binary)format,a WMO standard compressed format for gridded binary data, which can be manipulated and decoded using Wgrib.
If you are feeling less adventurous, the following scripts and programs can be used to extract multiple years of data from tape for a specific lat/lon location and pressure level.
Disclaimer: These programs were written for my own personal use, as such there may be bugs!