Available observation converter programs

The DART/observations/obs_converters directory contains a variety of converter programs to read various external formats and convert the observations into the format required by DART.

Each directory has at least one converter:

There are also a couple utilities of note:

  • Even Sphere - a utility for generating evenly-spaced observation locations that can then be used in a perfect model experiment.

  • Obs Error - modules that specify observation errors based on what is used by ECMWF and NCEP

In addition the following external program produces DART observation sequence files:

  • Observation Processing And Wind Synthesis (OPAWS): OPAWS can process NSF NCAR Dorade (sweep) and NSF NCAR EOL Foray (netCDF) radar data. It analyzes (grids) data in either two-dimensions (on the conical surface of each sweep) or three-dimensions (Cartesian). Analyses are output in netCDF, Vis5d, and/or DART (Data Assimilation Research Testbed) formats.

For generating synthetic observations, see the documentation for the program create_obs_sequence. You can also generate observation files based on text input. See the documentation for the PROGRAM text_to_obs. Or for simulating a large complex observing system, you can use the DART library routines in a Fortran program to compute the observation information and have the DART routines write the output file.

To learn how to run a model with a set of observations that have only locations, types, and times, and have the forward operators compute the observation values, see the documentation for the program perfect_model_obs.