Atmospheric Sounding Processing Environment

Announcement: Version 2.7.4 released on September 17, 2007

For the impatient, go directly to the download section.

See the ASPEN Readme file (PDF file - 300 kb) for a detailed description of changes along with the complete version history.

 

Support for Windows 98 and Windows 2000 has been discontinued. This version of Aspen can only be installed on Windows XP.

 

NOTE: This version introduces some new configuration parameters. If you are upgrading from a version that is more than a couple of years old, it is highly recommended that you discard old Aspen configuration files before the first run of Aspen. When you next run Aspen, it will offer to create new default configuration files. Thus:

  • Run Aspen and write down your existing configuration values, if they are different than the defaults. Use the configuration editor, which is available from the Files menu when no soundings are open.
  • Then shutdown Aspen, and remove the aspen.xml and aspen.dtd files, found in your Aspen specific configuration directory (usually c:\Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Aspen\)

The next time you run Aspen, it will create a new default configuration. Open the configuration editor and update your configuration values with the old values.

 

Changes in the most recent versions include:

  • A bug in the detrending for the Buddy Check, introduced in V2.7.3, prevented this algorithm from rejecting any points. This has been fixed. V2.7.3 should not be used.
  • Q/C diagnostics can be saved to a text file.
  • A configuration set was added which has Q/C parameters set to those used in Editsonde. (Remove your existing aspen.xml file in order to automatically install the revised aspen.xml. Note that your existing customizations to the configuration will be lost.)
  • The Summary tab now reports information about the data points rejected by each Q/C algorithm.
  • Final smoothing can be disabled by setting the final smoothing wavelength to 0.
  • Levels editing is more flexible
  • Levels overlays on the XY plot now show a trace.

 

 

Overview

 

Aspen (Atmospheric Sounding Processing Environment) is used for analysis and quality control (QC) of sounding data. The program runs on Windows machines. It has the following capabilities:

·      Automatically apply quality control procedures to the sounding data

·      Present data in tabular and graphical forms

·      Automatically determine levels and code them in WMO message formats

·      Transmit the WMO messages to other systems

·      Save the raw and derived data products in various formats

Since Aspen can process data provided in the AVAPS Dropsonde, NCAR GLASS, NCAR MCASS and NCAR CLASS formats, it is able to analyze both dropsonde and upsonde soundings.

Aspen is designed to operate as automatically as possible, while allowing the user to have some control over the QC methods. For instance, as soon as the user selects a sounding file for processing, the data is brought into Aspen and automatically analyzed. In most cases this first pass will be the only one required. If the processing needs to be modified, the user can change the QC parameters and reprocess the data as many times as necessary.

An extensive series of QC algorithms are applied to the data. These algorithms typically have one or two parameters that may be adjusted by the user if the default values are not suitable for a particular sounding. The user can save the modified options, so that when a new sounding is opened, the initial analysis will use the customized QC parameters.

Aspen can have up to twenty sounding files open at the same time. This makes it convenient to compare soundings. Output results can be formatted as printed text and graphics, and in ASCII and netCDF files.

Documentation

·      For operating instructions and a description of the processing procedures, see the ASPEN User Manual (PDF file – 1.4 mb).

·      Descriptions of the changes made between versions of Aspen can be found in the ASPEN Readme file(PDF file - 300 kb).

Download

·      You can download a self-extracting executable of the current version of Aspen. The download package includes the User Manual and the Readme file. Aspen is available free of charge; we do ask you to provide your name, an email address and an affiliation.

Technical

Aspen technical documentation is available:

·      UML artifacts document the software design of Aspen. (Caution – may take a minute or two to load). Note: these UML diagrams are not current, although the software structure has not changed significantly.

Information

For more information, contact Charles Martin at martinc at ucar.edu.

Backlinks

NCAR - Earth Observing Laboratory

modified: 2/11/07 9:29 PM