CLIWOC release 1.1

(23 January 2004)



This release of CLIWOC allows for preliminary research that may be used for publications before the final database is released. Most of the available data is included in this release. Another release will follow in the spring of 2004. In this release an ASCII version of the CLIWOC database is presented in IMMA format (see below). As the user may notice, there are several fields in the IMMA-records that are not used. Since a lot of work has been done to get this release working properly, we had to decide to postpone presenting additional information in this format.

Since little or no evidence is available, yet, that the reported wind directions were other than relative to Magetic North, a correction for the local magnetic variation - derived from input from Leeds University, given the position and year of observation - was applied to all wind directions.

ASCII filename: cliwoc1.1.txt


The file is in ASCII format and contains 239,853 records of 110 characters long (including CR/LF). The records are built according to the proposed format, given in the IMMA document, updated 22 July 2003 ( www.cdc.noaa.gov/coads/e-doc/imma/imma.pdf). The idea behind this format is that the user can easily start with the data, without having to concern about unit conversions.

It is all expressed in present day SI-units (e.g. UTC, Celsius, nautical miles, degrees, m/s and hPa). In the laboring process of keying the data from different sources, duplicate records may have been keyed when more than one source was available from the same voyage. Usually these records are not exact copies, but are more or less complementary to each other. The identification of the duplicates is handled in the ShipLogbookID file (shiplogbookid1.1.txt). If the user wants to avoid duplicates, he/she has to ignore those ID’s that have the Duplicate-field in the ShipLogbookID file set to other values than 0.

In the following table the record in the file cliwoc1.1.txt is explained.

Variable

Start

End

Format

Description

YR

1

4

A4

Year (UTC)

MO

5

6

A2

Month (UTC)

DY

7

8

A2

Day (UTC)

HR

9

12

A4

Hour (UTC)

LAT

13

17

A5

Latitude in hundredths of a degree; North of the equator is positive, South of the equator is negative

LON

18

23

A6

Longitude in hundredths of a degree; convention: 0-359.99, East of Greenwich

IM

24

25

A2

IMMA version; 0 = this prototype version

ATTC

26

26

A1

Attachment Count; presently still 0

TI

27

27

A1

Time indicator; only 0 (= nearest whole hour)

LI

28

28

A1

Latitude/longitude indicator; for this moment still 6 (= other)

DS

29

29

A1

Not in use

VS

30

30

A1

Not in use

NID

31

32

A2

Not in use

II

33

34

A2

ID indicator; all 10 (= composite information from early ship data).

ID

35

43

A9

Identification; In this release a number is given that identifies the ship and the ships’ logbook and the possibility that the current record is a duplicate.

With this number you can look up this information in the file: shiplogbookid1.1.txt

C1

44

45

A2

Country code; gives the nationality of the ship that made the observation:

ES = Spain

FR = France

NL = The Netherlands

UK = United Kingdom

DI

46

46

A1

Not in use

D

47

49

A3

Wind direction (from which the wind is blowing) in whole degrees from 1-360; 361 = calm, 362 = variable.

WI

50

50

A1

Wind speed indicator; all reported wind forces are more or less given in “Beaufort” classes (WI = 5); Much work still has to be done on the translation from the descriptive terms to a reduced set of wind forces.

W

51

53

A3

Wind speed; given in tenths of a meter per second. From the descriptive terms of wind force given in the observations, a first division into “Beaufort” classes resulted in the m/s given here. Most of the values are the midpoints of each Beaufort class, cf. WMO-1100. In those cases that more information was available, other values may have been used.

Bft 0: 0-0.2 m/s

Bft 1: 0.3-1.5 m/s

Bft 2: 1.6-3.3 m/s

Bft 3: 3.4-5.4 m/s

Bft 4: 5.5-7.9 m/s

Bft 5: 8.0-10.7 m/s

Bft 6: 10.8-13.8 m/s

Bft 7: 13.9-17.1 m/s

Bft 8 17.2-20.7 m/s

Bft 9: 20.8-24.4 m/s

Bft 10: 24.5-28.4 m/s

Bft 11: 28.5-32.6 m/s

Bft 12: >32.6 m/s


54

54

A1

Not in use

VV

55

56

A2

Not in use

WW

57

58

A2

Not in use

W1

59

59

A1

Not in use

SLP

60

64

A5

Sea level pressure in tenths of hPa. Still under study; No temperature correction was applied and for this moment the following factors have been used for the conversion to hPa:

2.54 cm in an inch

13.596 specific gravity of mercury

980.65 cm/s gravity at 45° latitude

A

65

65

A1

Not in use

PPP

66

68

A3

Not in use

IT

69

69

A1

Indicator for air temperatures, originating from:

3 = mixed precision Celsius

7 = mixed precision Fahrenheit

9 = mixed precision Réaumur

AT

70

73

A4

Air temperature in tenths of a degree Celsius

WBTI

74

74

A1

Not in use

WBT

75

78

A4

Not in use

DPTI

79

79

A1

Not in use

DPT

80

83

A4

Not in use

SI

84

85

A2

Method by which SST was taken;

10 = “implied” bucket

SST

86

89

A4

Sea surface temperature in tenths of a degree Celsius

N

90

90

A1

Not in use

NH

91

91

A1

Not in use

CL

92

92

A1

Not in use

HI

93

93

A1

Not in use

H

94

94

A1

Not in use

CM

95

95

A1

Not in use

CH

96

96

A1

Not in use

WD

97

98

A2

Not in use

WP

99

100

A2

Not in use

WH

101

102

A2

Not in use

SD

103

104

A2

Not in use

SP

105

106

A2

Not in use

SH

107

108

A2

Not in use

ASCII filename: shiplogbookid1.1.txt


The file is in ASCII format and contains 1,831 records of 67 characters long (including CR/LF).


In the following table the record is explained.

Variable

Start

End

Format

Description

ID

1

4

A4

Identification number of the Ship and Logbook

Shipname

5

34

A30

Name of the ship that made the observation

LogbookID

35

64

A30

Logbook identification number

Duplicate

65

65

A1

Duplicate or original; 0=original, 1=first duplicate, 2=second duplicate, etc.