UARZCNMC: Daily Stratospheric and Tropospheric Assimilation Data

Global assimilated meteorological data provides daily model runs at 12 GMT for comparison with Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) instruments. The dataset includes temperature, humidity, geopotential height, and wind components across 18 pressure levels from 1000 mb to 0.4 mb. Data is structured on a 65x65 NMC polar stereographic grid, with tropospheric fields from the Global Daily Assimilation System and stratospheric analyses from satellite retrievals.

Use Cases

• Validating UARS instrument readings based on independent assimilated meteorological fields.
• Analyzing stratospheric temperature profiles based on satellite retrievals and RAOBS.
• Studying hemispheric wind patterns based on zonal and meridional wind components.
• Comparing tropospheric moisture distribution based on northern hemisphere humidity data.
• Mapping geopotential height across pressure levels based on the 65x65 polar stereographic grid.

Strengths

• Provides assimilated data from multiple sources including radiosondes, aircraft, satellites, ships, and buoys.
• Covers a wide vertical range with 18 standard pressure levels from 1000 mb to 0.4 mb.
• Includes four distinct data subtypes (temperature, humidity, height, winds) per day.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low; column names, row counts, and size are unknown.
• Data coverage is inconsistent; moisture and wind data are only produced for specific hemispheres and pressure levels.
• Source freshness is conflicting; one platform shows a last updated date of 2026-04-09, while another shows 2001-09-30.

Provenance

Source

NOAA's National Meteorological Center (NMC), processed by GES_DISC.

Collection Method

Daily model runs from the Global Daily Assimilation System (GDAS) and operational stratospheric analyses.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:17:54.463638

Geography

Global, on a polar stereographic grid oriented 80W and 100E.