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small fraction of the recorded ionograms are analysed in this way, however,
because of the effort required. The traditional input to the WDC has been hourly
resolution scaled data, but many stations take soundings at higher resolutions.
The WDC receives data from the many ionosonde stations around the world
through a variety of means including ftp, email, CD-ROM. Data is provided in
a number of formats: URSI (simple hourly resolution) and IIWG (more com-
plex, time varying) standard formats as well as station specific “bulletins”. The
WDC stored data in digital formats comprises 2.9 GB of data in IIWG format
and 70 GB of raw MMM, SAO, ART files from Lowell digisondes. The WDC
also holds about 40,000 rolls of 16/35 mm film ionograms and ~10,000 monthly
bulletins of scaled ionospheric data. Some of this data is already in digital from,
but much, particularly the ionogram images, is not yet digitised.
•
Many stations' data is provided in IIWG or URSI format directly. This data
may be automatically or manually scaled.
•
selection of European stations provide “raw” format data from Lowell
digisondes, a particular make of ionosonde, as part of a COST project. This
data is in a proprietary format, but Lowell provides Java based software
for analysis. The WDC uses this software to manipulate this data, particu-
larly from the CCLRC's own Ionospheric Monitoring Groups Ionosondes at
Chilton, UK and Stanley, Falkland Islands. The autoscaled data from these
stations is also stored in a PostgreSQL database.
•
Other stations provide a small set of standard parameters in a station specific
“bulletin” format which is similar to the paper bulletins traditionally produced
from the 1950s onwards. The WDC has some bespoke, configurable software
to extract the data from these bulletins and convert it to IIWG format.
It is important to realise that this is a totally voluntary data collection and archive
system. The WDCs have no control or means of enforcing a “standard” means
of data processing or dissemination, though “weight” of history and ease-of-use
tends to make this the preferred option.
19.6.1 STFC3: Implementation Plan for Scenario3
Ionosonde-Simple
The first preservation scenario show us again supporting and integrating with
existing preservation practices of the World Data Centre, which means creating a
consistent global record from 252 station by extracting a standardise set of parame-
ters from the Ionograms produced around the world. A user from a future designated
community should be able to the following fourteen standard Ionospheric param-
eters from the data for a given station and time. They should also be able to
understand what these parameters represent.
F
min,
foE' h
_
E
,
foes h
_
Es,
type of
Es,
