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Journal for accession number: 0043269
Created on:                    2008-07-09 19:24:07 +0000
By:                            Yongsheng Zhang, SSMC3 4701,7133272 126

Source:  This accession contains the data descriptions for the Level-2 
X-Geophysical Data Records (GDR) from the Ocean Surface Topography 
Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2, which is served through the NOAA/NESDIS 
Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System (CLASS): 
http://www.class.noaa.gov 

The level 2 geophysical data records derived from instruments aboard the
JASON-2 satellite are available as 3 datatypes: Operational Geophysical Data
Records (OGDR), Interim Geophysical Data Records (IGDR) and final Geophysical
Data Records (GDR). The OGDRs are near-real-time records and are generated
every 3-5 hours. The IGDRs are based on preliminary DORIS ephemeris, analyzed
meteorological grids, and preliminary auxiliary data files. They have a data
latency of 1 - 2 days. The S-IGDR is a superset of the IGDR, containing the
original radar echo "waveform" data. The GDRs are based on final
high-precision DORIS (perhaps combined with GPS) ephemeris, final
meteorological grids, ancillary and auxiliary data files. S-GDR is a superset
of the GDR, containing the waveform data. They are generated every 10 days.
Sea Surface Height Anomaly (SSHA) files are available for IGDR and GDR. All
files are available in NetCDF format and the OGDR is also available in BUFR
format.

Other data/products associated with OSTM/Jason-2 are also provided through
CLASS. They are: ancillary and auxiliary data files used to generate Level-2
products, quality reports from the near real-time altimetry validation system
(NRTAVS), orbit information of JASON-2 satellite and telemetry data.The
descriptions of these data products can be accessed in other accessions at
NODC.


Files:

In this directory, the FGDC metadata for the OSTM/Jason-2 X-Geophysical Data
Records (GDR) is saved in text format. It is created by
NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC).

 FGDC_meta_NODC_0043269_Sep08.txt -   Metadata for OSTM/Jason-2 X-GDR, 09/03/2008.
 FGDC_meta_NODC_0043269_Aug09.txt -   Metadata for OSTM/Jason-2 X-GDR, 08/09/2009.
 FGDC_meta_NODC_0043269_Aug09.xml -   Metadata for OSTM/Jason-2 X-GDR, xml file, 08/09/2009.
 FGDC_meta_NODC_0043269_Dec11.txt -   Metadata for OSTM/Jason-2 X-GDR, 12/11/2009.
 FGDC_meta_NODC_0043269_Dec11.xml -   Metadata for OSTM/Jason-2 X-GDR, xml file, 12/11/2009.
 ISO_XGDR_meta_0043269_2011_old.xml - ISO Metadata in XML format, which is directly converted 
                                 from FGDC metadata (12/11/2009) by NOAA National Geophysical 
                                 Data Center (NGDC).


 ISO_XGDR_meta_0043269_2011.xml - Updated ISO metadata. In January 2013, these
                                 data and metadata were part of the NODC 
                                 Amazon Cloud pilot.

 userhandbook_Jan2009.pdf - OSTM/Jason-2 User's handbook, 2009 version.
 userhandbook_dec2011.pdf - OSTM/Jason-2 User's handbook, latest version.

data/0-data/

This directory contains the following data and documentation files:
 
data_URLs.html - A html file provides the URL links directing to the NOAA's CLASS data
    system for downloading these datasets.


A ftp site for nine data types of Jason-2 X-GDR data has been established at
NODC since December 8, 2009. For public users, all GDR data can be downloaded
from NODC:
ftp access: ftp://data.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/jason2
http access: http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/jason2
OPeNDAP: http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/opendap/jason2
THREDDS: http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/thredds/catalog/jason2/catalog.html

Last Update:  August 22, 2012 - Yongsheng Zhang