UARS level 3A file name convention
Explains how UARS 3A data file names are built up from
the instrument, species, UARS day and so on.
Components of the filename
The standard UARS filename convention is:-
instrument_Llevel_Sspecies_DUARS
day. Vversion_Ccycle_PROD
where
- Instrument is the instrument name, e.g. MLS or ISAMS.
- Level is the processing level: 3AL or 3AT for data
files, 3LP or 3TP for parameter files - the L and T represent
latitude or time gridded files.
- Species is the measured quantity or file type, e.g.
for MLS the possible values are ClO, H2O, O3_183, O3_205 (for
the 2 ozone channels, 183GHz and 205GHz), SO2, TEMP and PARAM_L3LP
or PARAM_L3TP for the parameter files containing metadata values
relating to the AL and AT files, respectively.
- UARS day is expressed as a 4 figure integer. UARS
day 1 = September 12 1991.
- Version is also expressed as a 4 figure integer,
For example 0003 for data at version 3
- Cycle is a 2 figure integer indicating the number
of times the processing algorithm was run to successfully produce
this file. Files with different cycle numbers for the same day,
level and version contain the same data, processed in the same
way. BADC stores only the file with the highest cycle number
for each day.
The ASCII files produced by BADC have the same filename as
the equivalent binary files, although Gzip adds the suffix "-GZ".
An Example
As an example consider the following MLS file:
MLS_L3AL_SCLO_D0020.V0003_C01_PROD
or after compression by Gzip:
MLS_L3AL_SCLO_D0020.V0003_C01_PROD-GZ
This is the MLS level 3AL data for ClO, UARS day 20, version
3, cycle 1.