International Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) R3.0 in Near-Real-Time (NRT)

The International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS) Near-Real-Time (NRT) product is an extension of the official ICOADS data set based on preliminary Global Telecommunication System (GTS) data. The data are considered 'preliminary' until fully incorporated into a full major ICOADS data set release. The NRT data set is a merged product of various marine GTS data sources providing surface marine in situ observations from different observing platforms. Observations in the NRT product are primarily from ships (merchant, research, fishing, navy, etc.), moored and drifting buoys, and coastal stations. Each report contains individual observations of meteorological and oceanographic variables, such as sea surface and air temperatures, winds, pressure, humidity, wet bulb, dew point, ocean waves and cloudiness. The data are provided in the ICOADS common International Maritime Meteorological Archive (IMMA) data format and NetCDF. Useful metadata have been added in the global and variable attributes of each file to make the netCDF self-contained. R3.0 includes changes designed to enable more effective exchange of information describing data quality between ICOADS, reanalysis centers, data set developers, scientists and the public. These user-driven innovations include the assignment of a unique identifier (UID) to each marine report, to enable tracing of observations, linking with reports and improved data sharing. Many new input data and metadata sources have been assembled, and updates and improvements to existing data sources, or removal of erroneous data, made. For NRT creation the data are first quality controlled and blended together, with duplicates (Intermediate product) retained. The duplicates are then compared and removed for the Final product and a statistical output summary file providing justifications for duplicate deletions that occurred during the blending process. User groups include sea surface temperature analyses, global surface temperature analyses, model/reanalysis input, and general ocean research. The data set is produced and archived monthly. Spatial coverage is global and the current period of record for these files begins in January 2008 to the most current complete month.