Re: [conduit] Removal of 500 and 1000 hPa height anomaly fields from GFS

Kevin, Greg,

Several months ago a user evaluating the parallel output from the GFS had the same concerns as you about this parameter no longer being available. We reached out to NCEP EMC's Mark Iredell and he gave this reasoning for the parameters removal:

"the climatology that had been used to compute geopotential height anomalies for the GFS was very old, representing a fairly short timeframe from forty years ago or so and had some known biases. Your approach of using reanalysis data is a far superior solution. Reanalysis climatology would not only have known provenance, it is higher resolution in space and longer averaging in time."

As you can tell, his recommendation is to use reanalysis data, just like you mentioned Greg.

Sorry for the inconvenience the removal of this parameter is causing.

Justin Cooke

NCEP Central Operations

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Greg Thompson <address@hidden> wrote:

Yes, this is a bit disappointing because I've had that product showing for years also. It can always be re-created from opening some reanalysis product that is an average, but the ease of plotting a single 2D field, which hardly added any real volume to the files, was made it so attractive.

--Greg Thompson, NCAR-RAL

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 12:33 PM, Tyle, Kevin R <address@hidden> wrote:

Hi everyone,

With today’s implementation of the GFS upgrades, the 500 and 1000 hPa height anomaly grids are no longer part of the output. This was advertised in the NWS Technical Implementation Notice, so it is not a surprise … but up till now, we made use of these grids in our web products.

Does anyone know of another quick-and-easy online source of either anomaly or mean grids for these two height levels? I can put something together via the CFSR, but that will take a wee bit of time …

Cheers,

Kevin

_____________________________________________

Kevin Tyle, Systems Administrator

Dept. of Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences

University at Albany

Earth Science 235, 1400 Washington Avenue

Albany, NY 12222

Email: address@hidden

Phone: 518-442-4578

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