TWP/VCEIL/C2 - occasional communication fault

Beginning August 30, 2005, the Nauru Ceilometer periodically went into a strange 
operational mode where the backscatter data exhibits vertical stripes.  Looking at the backscatter 
data - there are high amplitude oscillations occuring in the backscatter as a function 
of time at a given height.  The phenomenon appears to be more common at night.  Dates 
include: 30 Aug, 31 Aug, 1 Sep, 9 Sep, 15 Sep, 20 Oct, 22 Oct, 8 Dec, and others.

The fiber optic link to the ceilometer was faulty and causing periodic data corruption. 
The problem was corrected when the fiber optic line was replaced with a hard wired RS232 
link.

• status_string
• detection_status
• sum_backscatter
• laser_pulse_energy
• tilt_angle
• alt_highest_signal
• filename
• laser_temperature
• vertical_visibility
• range
• lon
• Third cloud base height(third_cbh)
• measurement_parameters
• status_flag
• Second lowest cloud base height(second_cbh)
• alt
• Lowest cloud base height detected.(first_cbh)
• background_light
• Normalized corrected relative backscatter(backscatter)
• window_contamination
• receiver_sensitivity
• base_time
• lat
• time_offset

TWP/SMET/C2 - Reprocess: Tipping bucket rain gauge added

A tipping bucket rain gauge was added to the TWP.C2 SMET suite of instruments on 20061129. 
Effective 20060926, two new variables (count and rain amount) were added to the end of 
the twpsmet60sC2.b1 datastream.  Between 9/26 and 11/29, the data for these two variables 
are filled with zeros.  Users should not use the data during this period as the zeros are 
not representative of the rain fall at the site.  When reprocessing of this datastream 
occurs these variables will be added for the 19981021-20060926 and data from 
19981021-20061129 will be filled with -9999 (missing).

• base_time

TWP/SMET/C2 - Reprocess: ORG Data has very small rainrate values

The ORG data is collected via analog signal and not digital.  Therefore, we continuously 
collect data even when no rain is occurring.  We also capture small events such as leaves, 
large bugs, dust, etc blowing through the measurement path.  Because this discrete event 
occurs quickly the value is usually captured for 1 or 2 seconds.  This value is then 
averaged to the minute producing rainrate on the order of .009 mm/hr or less.  

These values are not indicative of rain and should be removed from the record or summing 
over long periods can bias the climate record.  We will reprocess the data to remove these 
small values.

• Precipitation minimum(precip_min)
• Precipitation mean(precip_mean)
• Precipitation maximum(precip_max)
• precip_sd

TWP/SMET/C2 - Wind Speed data contain offset due to induced voltage

The marine model of the RM Young wind sensor needs twisted pair shielded cable.  The 
manufacturer did not originally supply the pigtail with twisted pair shielded cable.  Use of 
twisted pair shielded cable for the rest of the cable run to the logger was also not 
specified.  This caused an induced voltage in the wind speed line from the wind direction 
excitation.  The induced voltage varied from sensor to sensor and probably changed anytime 
the cable was replaced or parts of the wind sensor were repaired or replaced. The induced 
voltage has been seen to vary from 0.15 m/s to as much as 1.08 m/s.

• lo_spd_arith_avg
• lo_spd_min
• lo_spd_vec_avg
• up_spd_min
• up_spd_arith_avg
• lo_spd_max
• up_spd_sd
• up_spd_max
• lo_spd_sd
• up_spd_vec_avg

TWP/VCEIL/C2 - Reprocess: Incorrect serial_number and sum_backscatter fields

Attribute serial_number: In most cases, this field is not representative of the actual 
serial number of the instrument because the value did not change when an instrument changed 
locations or was replaced with a spare.
   
Variable sum_backscatter: An out-of-range condition for the "sum of detected and 
normalized backscatter" was reported as 0 instead of missing (-9999). The valid range is 0 - 
0.0999 /srad.
   
This DQR also applies to a1 level data.

• sum_backscatter

TWP/MPLCMASK/C2 - Cloud layer metadata misleading

The comment in the header for cloud_base_layer indicates that a value of -1 indicates that 
no cloud is detected.  For the specified time range, a value of 0 indicates that no 
cloud is detected.

Values greater than zero indicate cloudy conditions, otherwise it is clear.

• cloud_base_layer