Australia Upper Air Temperature And Wind Observations 1950-1993

Australia and New Guinea provide the primary geographic scope for this historical meteorological dataset. The National Climatic Data Center archives this upper air data, which was received from Australia and covers the period from 1950 through 1993. It contains major atmospheric parameters including pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind measurements.

Use Cases

• Analyze long-term trends in upper-air temperature and pressure over Australia from 1950-1993.
• Model historical wind speed and direction patterns for atmospheric reanalysis projects.
• Study correlations between relative humidity and other thermodynamic variables in the upper atmosphere.
• Validate or supplement other historical climate datasets like the Comprehensive Aerological Data Set (CARDS).

Strengths

• Covers a 44-year time range from 1950 to 1993.
• Includes major atmospheric parameters: pressure, temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and direction.

Limitations

• Data itself was not quality controlled by the NCDC, unlike the larger CARDS dataset.
• Temporally stale, with the last update in 1993.

Provenance

Source

National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), data originally received from Australia.

Collection Method

Archived historical digital data set DSI-6323, later incorporated into the larger CARDS (DSI-6305) dataset.

Time Range

1950-1993

Freshness

Data collection ended in 1993; it is a historical archive.

Geography

Primarily Australia and New Guinea, with a few other stations scattered worldwide.