Global Upper Air Meteorological Records from 1946 to 1975

Global Upper Air CARDS TDF-56 is a historical meteorological dataset containing upper air observations. It provides global data for the period 1946-1975, though coverage varies by station, and was assembled by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) from many smaller data sets. The dataset is archived by NOAA NCEI and was last updated in 1975.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term trends in upper air pressure and temperature from 1946-1975.
• Studying historical patterns of wind speed and direction at various atmospheric levels.
• Comparing relative humidity measurements in this raw dataset against its quality-controlled successor, DSI-6305.
• Investigating station-specific temporal coverage for bias assessment in historical climate models.

Strengths

• Covers a 30-year historical period from 1946 to 1975.
• Includes major meteorological parameters like pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind.

Limitations

• Data was not quality controlled by the NCDC, introducing potential errors.
• The period of record varies greatly by station, leading to inconsistent temporal coverage.
• Dataset is temporally stale, last updated in 1975 and superseded by modern archives.

Provenance

Source

National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), now part of NOAA NCEI.

Collection Method

Assembled from many smaller historical upper air data sets.

Time Range

1946 to 1975

Freshness

1975-12-31

Geography

Global