FCC Integrated Surface Hourly Database, A New Resource of Global Climate Data

摘要

As a result of Environmental Services Data and Information Management (ESDIM) funding, Office of Global Programs (OGP) funding, and extensive contributions from member agencies in the Federal Climate Complex (FCC), the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has completed two phases of the Integrated Surface Hourly (ISH) database project: 1) The database build phase, producing ISH version 1--The new database collects all of the NCDC and Navy surface hourly data (TD3280), NCDC hourly precipitation data (TD3240), and Air Force Datsav3 surface hourly data (TD9956), into one global database. The database totals approximately 350 gigabytes, for nearly 20,000 stations, with data from as early as 1900 to present. The building of the database involved extensive research, data format conversions, time-of-observation conversions, and development of extensive metadata to drive the processing and merging. This included the complex handling of input data stored in three different station-numbering/ ID systems. 2) The first phase of quality control, producing ISH version 2--This includes a) correction of errors identified after the database build phase; b) research, development, and programming of algorithms to correct random and systematic errors in the data, to improve the overall quality of the database; and c) data processing of the full period of record archive through these quality control algorithms.