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    • Russian Ice Island Upper Air Data

    Metadata Updated: December 12, 2025

    USSR Ice Island Rawindsonde is historical digital data set DSI-6355, archived at the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). This is meteorological upper air data from ice islands in the Arctic Ocean, collected by the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The period of record is 1950-91. Major parameters in upper air data sets are: geopotential height, pressure, temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed and direction.

    Access & Use Information

    License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

    Downloads & Resources

    Dates

    Metadata Date July 11, 2025
    Metadata Created Date December 12, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date December 12, 2025
    Reference Date(s) 2006 (publication)
    Frequency Of Update notPlanned

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from ncdc

    Other Data Resources

    Graphic Preview

    Upper air ballon

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Date July 11, 2025
    Metadata Created Date December 12, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date December 12, 2025
    Reference Date(s) 2006 (publication)
    Responsible Party NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (Point of Contact)
    Contact Email
    Guid gov.noaa.ncdc:C00567
    Access Constraints Distribution liability: NOAA and NCEI make no warranty, expressed or implied, regarding these data, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty. NOAA and NCEI cannot assume liability for any damages caused by any errors or omissions in these data. If appropriate, NCEI can only certify that the data it distributes are an authentic copy of the records that were accepted for inclusion in the NCEI archives., Use liability: NOAA and NCEI cannot provide any warranty as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of furnished data. Users assume responsibility to determine the usability of these data. The user is responsible for the results of any application of this data for other than its intended purpose.
    Bbox East Long 180.0
    Bbox North Lat 90.0
    Bbox South Lat 65.0
    Bbox West Long -180.0
    Coupled Resource
    Frequency Of Update notPlanned
    Graphic Preview Description Upper air ballon
    Graphic Preview File https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/metadata/images/C00975-8.png
    Graphic Preview Type PNG
    Harvest Object Id 39356907-f0a8-4fe3-a025-3789945da579
    Harvest Source Id 2cb3ef77-1683-4c2a-9119-dc65e50917c6
    Harvest Source Title ncdc
    Licence
    Lineage Comparison to a separate source for the same data might detect a variety of problems including incorrect times on the soundings and discrepancies in data values. Especially in the earlier NCEP decode files it is not easy to identify the Russian polar stations. Raobs were pulled from the NCEP archives for all stations that might be Russian Polar stations. The earliest data is from 1962 and the data is very sparse (once every few weeks) until the mid seventies and especially 1978 when data is more complete. Until May 1979, the Russian polar data does not have a unique ID in the NCEP decode files. It is also noted that the NCEP files occasionally appear to have incorrect locations on the observations, usually a hemisphere swap (E-W). Due to the sparseness of the data and the difficulty in identifying the stations, only manual spot checks were made. Comparison files were made and merged together based on time of ob. These were then manually inspected. No station before station 10 could be compared. Stations 10, 12, 13, and 14 all compared favorably except that the time assigned from the NCEP decode files was always 3 hours later than the time in the Russian archive. The NCEP times tend to be 03 and 15Z and Russian times tend to be around 00 and 12. Since this is well after the date when official ob times were switched to 00 and 12 it seems likely the Russian times are correct. No evidence of improper merging of sound parts was found. There was a gap in polar data from the NCEP files in the mid 60s and no data was available for comparing stations 15, 16, and 17. Stations 21, 22, 26, 28, 30, and 31 showed good time agreement and good data compares. No evidence of improper merging of sounding parts was found.
    Metadata Language eng; USA
    Metadata Type geospatial
    Old Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[-180.0, 65.0], [180.0, 65.0], [180.0, 90.0], [-180.0, 90.0], [-180.0, 65.0]]]}
    Progress
    Spatial Data Service Type
    Spatial Reference System
    Spatial Harvester True
    Temporal Extent Begin 1950-01-01
    Temporal Extent End 1991-12-31

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