BADC Help File: Acquiring and Reading AAM data

You can obtain copies of AAM ASCII data files directly from these pages using your WWW browser, or via the BADC FTP service (you will need to register as a BADC user to use the FTP service).


  1. Transferring the AAM data via the web or FTP
  2. File names and Data File Format
  3. Reading the AAM data files
  4. Access to the AAM data and Software

Transferring the AAM data via the web or FTP

File names

There are two data subdirectories containing data from different sources: The Met Office and ECMWF is the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting.

ECMWF data file names include either a two-digit figure for the year, or two such values representing the start and end year, e.g. ANGM79.DAT or ANGM8688.DAT .

UKMO data file names are of the form UKyyyy.DAT for the old format data and WASHyy.DAT for the Washington coded data, where yyyy and yy denote a 4-digit or 2-digit year value, respectively.

The data file format is documented.



Reading the AAM data files

Example FORTRAN code or format statements to read all of the available data formats is held online in the software directory (FTP users should change directory to /badc/ukmo-aam/software). Additional software is available to convert between Washington and UKMO format and vice-versa.

Note that the software examples are supplied exactly as they were received and may need to be changed to work on your computer. Some of the read examples are simply FORTRAN read and format statements rather than complete programs. Some of the code includes integer*2 data types which are not portable and should be changed to integer. Other sections of code include IBM job control statements which should be removed.

Access to the AAM data and Software

Data:


Software: