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Enhancing metadata available from MADIS for the National Mesonet
Michael F. Barth, NOAA/ESRL/GSD, Boulder, CO; and P. A. Miller and D. Helms
As described in the National Research Council report on Observing
Weather and Climate from the Ground Up: A Nationwide Network of
Networks, the U.S. Enterprise observing system is now comprised of a
"Network of Networks" jointly provided by government, academia,
industry, and the public. For example, many state and local
governments and private companies have installed and operate dense
networks of surface observing systems known as mesonets. Partially in
response to the report, NOAAis building a National Mesonet
infrastructure to extend the reach of its backbone surface observing
systems by leveraging existing observations from non-Federal networks.
As stated in the NRC report, "A NoN cannot deliver a net benefit to
users unless comprehensive metadata are supplied". Establishment of a
comprehensive metadata database with information on items such as
observing system instrumentation, calibration, maintenance and siting
are essential for effective utilization and integration of the various
data sources for specific applications and observation-based
verification and data assimilation techniques.
The Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS) ingests,
integrates, quality controls, and distributes surface and upper-air
datasets to the meteorological community, and provides high-quality
environmental data to the weather enterprise. MADIS is a NOAA
Research system, developed at OAR/ESRL/GSD, and is now being
transitioned to NOAA operations.
Among the MADIS datasets is an integrated observation database
containing high-frequency, real-time data from over 60,000 surface
stations operated by more than 150 government and non-government
networks. Many users are already finding many good applications for
the MADIS mesonet data. However, there can be significant challenges
in evaluating and using data from non-NOAA sources, which do not
always follow identical siting and instrumentation standards. Dealing
with this many networks requires integrating a disparate collection of
stations, with many vendors, instrument types, and software processing
packages in use. Siting can also be a challenge, as many of the
stations are in urban areas, which may prove challenging for
metorological applications.
This paper will provide an overview of the MADIS plans for collecting,
storing, and distributing metadata in support of the National Mesonet.
Poster Session , IIPS Poster Session Part I
Monday, 18 January 2010, 2:30 PM-4:00 PM
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