Version 8.0 SBUV Profile Data on DVD

Introduction
This DVD contains a complete time series record of atmospheric 
ozone profiles from November 1978 to December 2003 derived from 
satellite Solar Backscattered Ultraviolet (SBUV) measurements. 
Data from the SBUV instrument on the Nimbus-7 satellite and the 
SBUV/2 instruments on NOAA-11, NOAA-16 and NOAA-9 satellites 
are selected to give a complete time series using the highest 
quality data available. As discussed further in Section 2 
(Section2.txt in the DVDtext folder/directory) and indicated by 
the Error Codes and the Residue Quality Control (Residue QC) 
parameters in the data files, the overall data quality varies 
with instrument and time. Parts of Nimbus-7, NOAA-11 and 
NOAA-16 have the best quality. The data from the NOAA-9 SBUV/2 
instrument are considered to be of poorer quality, and are 
included only to complete gaps in time not covered by the other 
instruments. The Noaa09_post92 directory contains data covering 
the period when there are no NOAA-11 data. The Noaa09_pre89 
directory contains data covering the Nimbus-7 out-of-
synchronization period. Some overlap of instrument measurements 
is provided. See Section 2 for guidelines to select the best 
quality data and some discussion of instrument problems that 
affect data quality. Links to the latest information on the 
data provided on this DVD can be found at the NOAA SBUV/2 V8 
DVD Link:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/sbuv2to/sbuv2to_v8dvd.html

Description of DVD Data
In the V8DATA directory, there are subdirectories for each 
instrument. These have subdirectories for each year containing 
the daily data files in ASCII format. A sample ASCII file 
(table1_sample.txt in the DVDtext folder/directory)
shows the beginning of a daily file with eight lines of header 
and the subsequent first three 3-line data records. As briefly 
described in the header, each data record starts with 11 
parameters relative to the profile, followed by ozone amounts in Dobson 
Units for 13 layers and finally the ozone concentrations in PPMV 
units at 15 pressure levels. A brief description of the first 
eleven parameters is as follows:
    * Year : The four digit Common Era year
    * Day_of_Year : The day of the year with January 1st equal to 1
    * GMT_seconds : The Greenwich Mean Time at the start of the 
      measurement
    * Latitude : The Latitude (Degrees North) of the measurement
    * Longitude : The Longitude (Degrees East) of the measurement
    * Solar_Zenith : The Solar Zenith Angle (Degrees) of the 
      measurement
    * Total_Ozone : The total column ozone in Dobson Units from 
      the ground up
    * Reflectivity : Effective reflectivity from the ground and /
      or clouds.
    * Aerosol_Index : Significant quantities indicate the 
      presence of aerosols.
    * Quality_Residue : Average of the absolute final residues.
      (See Section2.txt in the DVDtext folder/directory.)
    * Error_Flag : Three digit error code.
      (See Section2.txt in the DVDtext folder/directory.)

Note: a daily file may contain part of an orbit of data from the 
following day, and some of the data for the start of a day may 
only appear in the preceding day's file.

These files can be accessed by modifying one of the sample IDL 
(read_compv8sbuf_sg_pro.txt) or FORTRAN 90 (read_compv8_sg_F90.txt) 
programs in the Software folder/directory to read in a day's data.

The V8 algorithm is described in Section1.txt in the DVDtext 
folder/directory. 

The V8 data quality is described in Section2.txt in the DVDtext 
folder/directory.

Acknowledgments
The reprocessed SBUV/2 data were made available with support 
from the NOAA Climate and Global Change Program, Atmospheric 
Chemistry Element and the NOAA National Environmental Satellite 
Data and Information Services, Product Systems Development and 
Implementation Program. Support for SSAI contributors was 
provided under NASA contracts NAS5-00220 and NAS5-01008.