gov.noaa.ncdc:C00371 National Climatic Data Center, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce Unknown tabular digital data http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/documentlibrary/datasets.html#TD3720 http DSI-3720 Documentation NCDC Dataset Documentation for DSI-3720 information USSR Monthly Precipitation Data for 622 Stations 1891-1999 is digital data set DSI-3720, archived at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). This data contains mean monthly precipitation data for the period 1891-1999 for 622 stations in what was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It also includes a set of metadata files that provide absolutely essential information about stations and USSR measurement policies and methods over the years of data. To make a wide range of climatic data available to researchers and the public. data set C00371 RAIN GAUGES WEATHER STATIONS National Climatic Data Center, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce http://www4.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/documentlibrary/datasets.html#TD3720 18910101 19991231 Ground Condition Complete As Needed 20.0 -168.0 84.0 35.0 ISO 19115 Topic Category climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere 004 elevation 006 DIF Discipline Keyword Thesaurus Earth Sciences > Atmosphere > Meteorology Earth Sciences > Atmosphere > Climatology Earth Sciences > Atmosphere > Weather Earth Sciences > Land > Hydrology GCMD Sciences Keyword Valids EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION AMOUNT EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ALTITUDE > STATION HEIGHT GCMD Location Valids RUSSIA GCMD Location Valids LAND SURFACE WEATHER STATIONS RAIN GAUGES 1 None None Not provided Unknown Completeness information not available. Unknown Unknown The archive is composed of several files. The main file ("file4upd99.dat") consists of monthly precipitation from 622 stations for 1891-1999 ordered according to the numbers in the list of stations (file "STATION.LST"). File "STATION.LST" contains the station numbers (from 1 to 622) coordinates (up to hundredth of degree), elevations (in meters), WMO numbers, and names. Few stations (from the secondary precipitation network, or posts) do not have WMO numbers and their positions are filled with 99999. The record format of recording in the main file is (1X, I3, 1X, I4, 1X, 12F5.1), where the first number is the station number, the second is the year, followed by 12 monthly precipitation totals. Each of the 622 stations has 109 lines in this file. The code for missing data is -1.0. We preserved the original data sources from the previous version of the archive (which ends in 1993) but made a concerted effort to update the last 15 years from all possible sources. These sources are described in the order of preference used for the archive update. 1. "Meteorological Monthlies" originally were the major source for update during the period from 1985 to 1988. Later they were used, when it was possible, for updating the previous archive version up to 1993. 2. For the period from 1989 to 1993 the data were obtained more frequently from the "Climate" cables sent to VNIIGMI-WDC (Obninsk) and then from "Meteorological Monthlies", because these publications became infrequent and often unavailable from different parts of the former USSR (fUSSR). A specific feature of the "Climate" cables is the rounding of the monthly precipitation totals to whole mm. Whenever it was possible, we use the "Monthlies". The data from these sources were already incorporated into the previous version of the archive; only some infilling of missing sources was performed for the period prior to 1993. From data source 3 we infilled 4055 monthly values, and from data source 4 we infilled 398 monthly values for the 1985- 1993 period, most of them (83%) for the 1990s. In 2000, two additional sources of the USSR precipitation data (#3 and #4 described below) became available at the National Climatic Data Center via the bilateral collaboration with the World Data Center B, WDC-B, for Meteorology (Obninsk, Russia) and the data rescue efforts of the WDC-B and the Institute for Global Climate and Ecology (Moscow, Russia). 3. Reliable daily precipitation data measured and recorded by the national weather services of the Commonwealth of Independent States and Baltic States and then rescued (digitized and quality controlled) by the WDC-B were used to update the archive for the period from 1994 to 1996 and to infill missing values during the previous years (since 1984). 4. The Institute for Global Climate and Ecology (Moscow, Russia) has compiled its own archive of monthly precipitation for the period up to 1998 / 11 / with a significant overlap of our stations. The single data source for this archive since the 1980s were the "Climate" cables. These data were the single source for us in updating our archive for the period from 1997 to 1998 and to infill missing values during the previous years (totally 6080 monthly values were taken from this archive for the 1994-1996 period). 5. The complete set of national Russian "Climate" cables for 1999 (including many of those from CIS and the Baltic States) was provided to us by Dr. Vyacheslav N. Razuvaev. These data were the major single source for us in updating our archive for 1999. 6. After all Russian-based sources of information were exhausted, we tapped the international source of the Global Telecommunication System accumulated in NCDC in the framework of the Global Historical Climatology Network. This source provided us 573 additional monthly precipitation values for the period of 1991 to 1999 that were not available in the Russian archives (mostly from the fUSSR countries other than Russia, 64 of them in year 1999). 7. Due to the nature of changes in the data (re-adjustments for wetting correction described below, see also /9/) which we introduced in the file "file4upd99_adj.dat," we could not easily update the original archive data prior to 1985 because of conversions in the original data source "The calendar of monthly precipitation anomalies in percents of the normal by the data from the stations of the USSR territory" for 1891-1984 /1, 2, 3/. In the last months of 1984 there were too many missing values in the original archive due to the late report practice. Therefore, we considered it inappropriate to leave these missing values in our archive, and a special provision was made for this year: we extracted all currently available (but originally missing) monthly values from the 3rd and 4th sources of the update (totally 595 monthly values or 8% of the entire data volume for this year; 589 of which were from the 3rd data source) and specially processed them when composing our wetting re-adjusted file "file4upd99_adj.dat." File "file4upd99_adj.dat" contains the wetting re-adjusted file of the same data based on the analysis presented in /9/. These are relatively small corrections (a few percent), but their systematic nature noticeably changes the century-long precipitation trends over the former Soviet Union /9/. Table 1 provides the adjustments used for each time zone, type of station, and period of time. The methodology that leads to these adjustments is described in Appendix 1 of /9/. The format of this file is the same as for "file4upd99.dat." If we were to have the daily and sub-daily precipitation amount and type information for each station in our archive, these re- adjustments would be individual and "better." However, we did not have easy access to this information and had to settle for those shown below and based on a subset (about a quarter) of our station archive. Table 1. Scale corrections (in percent) which were used to change the mean monthly precipitation values in our archive from "file4upd99.dat" to "file4upd99_adj.dat" using the formula: Padjsted = Poriginal (1+0.01[scale correction]). "Cold" season is defined as October through March and the "warm" season as April through September. Some of time zones (Third to Sixth) are divided into two latitudinal parts by 55 N. ____________________________________________________________________ Time interval Season Region pre- 1936 1966 1985 after after to to 1936 1965 1984 1986 1985 Stations Posts ____________________________________________________________________ 0.8 -1.8 -0.3 -3.4 -3.4 -0.8 Cold North of time zone 3 0.8 -1.8 -0.8 -2.5 -2.5 -0.5 Cold South of time zone 3 -0.5 -3.4 -2.1 -4.8 -1.9 -1.9 Cold North of time zones 4-6 0.2 -2.8 -2.0 -2.5 -0.7 -0.7 Cold South of time zones 4-6 -0.6 -5.0 -5.0 -2.2 -2.2 -2.2 Cold time zones 7-9 0.3 -4.0 -2.0 -4.9 -1.8 -1.8 Cold time zones 10 through 13 0.6 -1.5 -0.5 -1.3 -1.3 0.0 Warm North of time zone 3 1.2 -0.8 0.0 -0.9 -0.9 0.0 Warm South of time zone 3 0.5 -2.0 -0.8 -1.5 0.0 0.0 Warm North of time zones 4-6 0.6 -2.2 -1.4 -0.9 0.0 0.0 Warm South of time zones 4-6 0.6 -2.1 -1.7 0.0 0.0 0.0 Warm time zones 7-9 0.4 -2.0 -0.2 -2.0 -0.1 -0.1 Warm time zones 10-13 ____________________________________________________________________ Files of correction coefficients (K1, K2, K3) to the precipitation normals from the data of "The Reference book on Climate of the USSR" /4/ are located in three metadata files, "K1.LST," "K2N.LST," and "K3.LST". For each station, file "K1.LST" contains a line of information [format (I3,1X, i4,1X,i2,2X,12F5.2)] with the station number, the date (year and month) of the installation of the new Tretiyakov rain gauge in place of the previous Nipher-shielded gauge, and 12 coefficients of transition for the normal obtained from the data of the Nipher shielded rain gauge to the normal obtained from the data of Tretiyakov gauge for every month (K1). This coefficient is equal to 1 during the months with liquid precipitation, and, as a rule, greater than 1 during the months with solid and mixed precipitation. In some southern regions of the USSR (Middle Asia, Moldavia) this coefficient is identically equal to 1 because regional meteorological services did not find any significant systematic changes while passing to the application of the new device. The code for missing data is 9.99 for K1 values and 9999 and 99 for year and month of the gauge type change (when it has never happened). For each station, file "K2N.LST" contains a line of information [format (I3, I5, I3, 2X, A2, 2X,12(1x,F4.2))] with the station number, the year and the month when the Nipher shielded rain gauge replaced the Tretiyakov gauge, the type of station protection according to the classification by Shver / 4, 5 /, and 12 coefficients - multipliers K2 of wind correction to the normals measured with the Tretiyakov gauge. The code for missing data is - 9 in all significant positions. File "K2.LST" is identical to "K2N.LST" but the types of station protection are skipped in this file [format (I3, I5, I3, 2X, 12(1x,F4.2))]. For each station, file "K3.LST" contains a line of information [format (I3, 14X, 12F5.2)] with the station number and 12 coefficients K3, characterizing the share of mean monthly precipitation which remains in the gauge bucket after it has been emptied (the so-called corrections for wetting). This file contains all K3 coefficients without gaps. The file of coordinates and commentaries, "HISTORY.doc," was not changed since the previous version (except essential corrections of the WMO numbers for four stations mentioned earlier and minimal adjustments in coordinates and elevations for two of them, #566 and #567). This is now a Microsoft Word 7.0 file instead of the previously used WordPerfect 5.1 format. For user convenience an ASCII version of this file, "HISTORY.asc," is also provided. The description below of this file was not changed from the previous version of the archive. This file is a listing divided by the headings into parts consisting of 20-40 lines, each part for 9 stations. The heading is divided into three columns by the symbol "*" and look like this: ______________________________________________________________________________ Reg # Lat. Long. H (m) * Station * Nipher The dates of changes in the position of the station or in its environs The first column of the listing includes the station number, its latitude, longitude, and elevation (in meters) in the format (5X, I3, 1X, F5.2, 1X, F6.2, 1X, F4.0). The second line of this column presents the synoptic index of the station in the format (I5,21X). The second column, which is 21 symbols wide, contains the name, of the station in Russian characters in the first line and in English in the second line. The last column contains information about the shifts of the station, changes in its openness to wind and other information characterizing the homogeneity of precipitation time series, and the quality of the data from the station. This information is divided into 4 groups. The initial 11 positions, of the first line of column 4 contain information on the date of Nipher shield establishment at the gauge if it is known that for a certain period of time precipitation was measured without this shield. Otherwise these positions are blank. As a rule, the presence of a gap means that from the very beginning the measurements were made using a Nipher- shielded rain gauge. The format of this information is (3X, I4, I2, 2X), where the first number is year and the second is the month when the Nipher shield was established. If the month is unknown, two blanks are in its position. The next N*8 positions of the column (the second group of information) contain the information about the dates of station relocations and (or) other changes in the surroundings of the meteorological site (N is the number of these changes). The format of recording of these positions is (A1, I3, I2, A1, 1X). If the first symbol of the recording is "*", it means that shifts did not occur any longer and the following symbols belong to another group. It the first symbol is "1" it means that following further are the characteristics of the shift (change) - the number of the year (-1000), the month of the shift and symbols " " ", "greater than symbol" or "a less than symbol". A greater than symbol means that after the shift the wind protection of the gauge has improved and more precipitation gets into the gauge bucket (mainly in winter). A less than symbol means that protection has become worse. Symbol " " means that the information on the change of protection is absent or the degree of protection has not changed. Two blanks in the month position mean that the month of the shift is not known. The third group of information (four positions) contains a recommended season for which precipitation data obtained at the station can be considered homogeneous during the entire observational period after the installation of the Nipher shield. If shifts/changes, which entail the changes in the degree of wind protection have occurred, then this is a period of liquid precipitation. The format of recording is (I1,'-', I2), where the numbers before and after the hyphen mean the first and the last month of the season. If shifts were absent or there are no reasons to think that they significantly influenced the homogeneity of a time series, the four positions contain' ok '. If shifts (for example, in a mountainous region) affected the homogeneity noticeably, four positions contain ' bad'. The reasons for such characteristics of the station are given in the commentary. The fourth group of information -- commentaries -- is placed between two symbols " * ". File "VALDAI" contains the precipitation data from the Valdai experimental meteorological site for 1961(6)-1988(0). Presented are the data from two gauges: (1) - #98 - measuring "real" precipitation, without taking into account wind or similar noise (the description of wind protection of this device is given in the work by V.S.Golubev /6/; (2) - standard measurements at Valdai station with individual wetting correction; and (3) the data from this station contained in file "file4upd99.dat." The combined analysis of these time series allows one to get an idea of the underestimation of precipitation sums by the standard Tretiyakov gauge, as well as of the inaccuracy of data for 1966 due to an incorrect method of making correction for moistening. Each of the three time series has an information line in format (a80) and annual data for 1961(6)-1980(8) in the format (I4, 2X, 12F5.1,F6.1), where the year, 12 monthly sums and annual sum occupy one line. The code for missing data is 999.9 for monthly precipitation and 9999.9 for annual precipitation. None National Climatic Data Center, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce Customer Services Branch Mailing and physical

151 Patton Avenue

Room 468

Asheville North Carolina 28801-5001 USA 828-271-4800 828-271-4010 828-271-4876 ncdc.orders@noaa.gov 8:00 - 6:00 Eastern http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/about/ncdcordering.html DSI-3720 Every effort has been made to ensure that these data are accurate and reliable within the limits of current NOAA quality control procedures. NOAA can only certify that the data provided to its customers is an authentic copy of the records which were accepted for inclusion in NOAA archives. NOAA cannot assume liability for any damages caused by any errors or omissions in the data, nor as a result of the failure of the data to function on a particular system. NOAA makes no warranty, expressed or implied, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty. 20060627 20060627 National Climatic Data Center, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce Customer Services Branch Mailing and physical

151 Patton Avenue

Room 468

Asheville North Carolina 28801-5001 USA 828-271-4800 828-271-4010 828-271-4876 ncdc.metadata@noaa.gov 8:00 - 6:00 Eastern Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata: Extensions for Remote Sensing Metadata FGDC-STD-012-2002 http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/metadata/extensions/local_extensions.html NGDC Extensions to FGDC Metadata http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/projects/FGDC-standards-projects/csdgm_rs_ex/MetadataRemoteSensingExtens.pdf http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/projects/FGDC-standards-projects/csdgm_rs_ex/remote-sensing-metadata Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata: Extensions for Remote Sensing Metadata, FGDC-STD-012-2002 http://www.eis.noaa.gov/fgdc/fgdcleg.html NOAA Supplemental Information in Description (NOAA legacy extension to FGDC)