ReadMe file for XBT/mooring data files.                          1/27/98

Files through 1997 are available.

All files for 1990-1995 are renewed as of 11/15/96.  A number of bad
casts which had eluded earlier QC have been removed.  Many thanks to
those who pointed out such errors thereby allowing us to improve this
set of data.

The data are the XBT/mooring profiles used in the Atlantic and Pacific
model/data analyses by the Coupled Model Project at NMC.

The files contain XBT profiles and in the Pacific TOGA/TAO and some 
Japanese mooring profiles as well.

The 1990-97 files are in /pub/ocean/clim1/xbt.  See also the directory
/pub/ocean/clim1/xbt/tmp for files for the years 1982-89.  These have
not yet received the final stage of our standard QC.  As we have time
to do this they will be moved to the regular xbt directory.

FILES:
  The files axbt.y??.Z and pxbt.y??.Z are our edited xbt files for the
Atlantic and Pacific.  The year is indicated by the file extension: ".y??".

FORMAT:
  The files are ASCII and each cast has a header followed by the data in
depth-temperature pairs.  The header contains:

Year, Month, Day, Hour(in tenths of an hour), Lat, Long, #DataPairs, ShipID

BUGS:
  At present, for the Atlantic, the number of XBTs begins to decline in
October 1990 and by mid-November 1990 our archive has little data until 
May 1991.  After May 1991 the Atlantic archive apparently has no more
time gaps.

  For 1991, the Pacific archive has no data south of 35S or north of 45N.
Beginning again in 1992 the data extends from 45S to 55N.

  The years 1982-89 have not yet had the full standard QC.

Dave Behringer
dbehr@sun1.wwb.noaa.gov

POC: Hyun-Chul.Lee@noaa.gov