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Recommendations from MARCDAT-I, Boulder 2002.

B. Surface Pressure and Wind Working Group

1. The Hadley Centre global monthly MSLP data set HadSLP should be updated.
Status: Ongoing
Notes: A new version of HadSLP (1850-2004) is now complete (HadSLP2p) and is updated in near-real-time (HadSLPr). A paper (Allan and Ansell, 2005) is in preparation, to be submitted to J. Climate by the 12th of August 2005. HadSLP2p/r are seen as interim products and a selective release to around eight research groups around the world was made for testing and evaluation of these products. The final version will be released in February 2006.


2. The Terms of Reference of the GCOS MSLP Working Group should be expanded to include surface winds.
Status: Amended
Notes: At CLIMAR2 SLP Working Group Meeting it was decided to amend this recommendations to "The GCOS MSLP Working Group should be expanded to include a specialist in surface winds."


3. A catalogue of available pressure products should be developed.
Status: Available
Notes: This is now on the new AOPC/OOPC Surface Pressure Working Group web page (http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/gcos_wgsp/).


4. Florida State University will have a non-global (Pacific & Indian Oceans) data set of surface wind and MSLP, fluxes, and related variables from 1950 onwards.
Status: Limited progress
Notes: 2° wind products are available for the Tropical Pacific from 1961 and the Tropical Indian Ocean from 1970: http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/. Research to extend to pressure and flux products on a 1-degree grid and prior to 1978 is ongoing.


5. Appropriate techniques for the adjustment of both estimated and measured wind speed observations should be investigated and applied.
Status: In progress
Notes: Investigation in progress (e.g. Thomas, B. R., E. C. Kent and V. R. Swail, 2005: Methods to Homogenize Wind Speeds from Ships and Buoys International Journal of Climatology (CLIMAR-II Special Issue), 25(7), 979-995, DOI: 10.1002/joc.1176) and analysis of recent wind observations using all available metadata is underway.


6. Monthly wind statistics for 1854 to date should be computed using the adjusted estimated and measured winds.
Status: No progress
Notes: No progress at the moment but is still an important piece of work.


7. The Meteorological Service of Canada has created a high-resolution analysis of winds over the North Atlantic for 1958-1997. The use of historical daily MSLP fields to backdate this analysis should be investigated.
Status: In progress
Notes: Feasibility study being performed by Oceanweather under contract to Environment Canada. More information should be available by the end of April 2004.


8. Biases from the US Maury Collection pressure data set should be investigated.
Status: Completed for Hadley Centre needs
Notes: Hadley Centre made approximate adjustment (Ansell et al., 2005).


9. More observations on pressure are needed to improve historical MSLP analyses.
Status: Ongoing
Notes: AOPC/OOPC Surface Pressure Working Group web page (http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/gcos_wgsp/), includes information.


10. The new JCOMM metadata base for moored and drifting buoys, and other ODAS (e.g., offshore platforms), should be populated with current and historical data.
Status: Ongoing
Notes: See item E, 3.


11. Merged ICOADS and WMO Publication No. 47 data 1980-97 should be made available.
Status: Completed
Notes: See item E, 5.


12. Improved monthly (and daily if possible) surface pressure for land stations should be made available for blended land-marine analysis.
Status: Ongoing
Notes: Progress for Atlantic/European sector as part of EMULATE. A new Northern Hemisphere reconstruction of daily MSLP, building on EMULATE, is planned.


13. Improved Reanalysis techniques, currently being developed, should be used to produce a combined daily MSLP and surface wind product for as much of the world as possible back to the late 19th Century.
Status: In progress
Notes: A pilot reanalysis for 1938 - 1948 is underway as part of the Historical Reanalysis Project. 4 times daily tropospheric fields (surface to 250 hPa) are planned to be complete by September 2006. 2 papers on the project are either in press (http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/gilbert.p.compo/Whitakeretal2004.pdf) or under review (http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/gilbert.p.compo/Compoetal2005.pdf).

The proposed GCOS daily and subdaily database of surface and sea level pressure marine and land observations is currently being assembled with the tentative title of the International Surface Pressure Dataset.



14. For all gridded data sets, error estimates of wind and pressures should include grid box uncertainties and error covariance structures.
Status: In progress
Notes: This has been done for EMULATE daily pressures (Ansell et al., 2005) and for global monthly pressure fields (Allan and Ansell, 2005).

For further information, or to provide status updates, contact:

Dr. Elizabeth C. Kent,
James Rennell Division (254/26), National Oceanography Centre,
Southampton, European Way, SOUTHAMPTON, SO14 3ZH, UK
Tel(+Voice Mail): +44 (0)23 8059 6646; Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 6400
http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/JRD/MET/
Elizabeth.C.Kent@noc.soton.ac.uk