Initial Data Available

This is a short note to inform you that the first years of data have been opened for access at the Modeling and Assimilation Data and Information Services Center (MDISC). The announcement can be found here: http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/merra/data_access.php

Instructions for download and visualization are available at: http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/MDISC/

Documentation and status of the system and data files are at the MERRA WWW page: http://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/merra/

While there are a number of tools for access, to download large amounts, probably the most straightforward way is to follow the links through Mirador (a search and order program). This will provide a script that will ftp the data back to the user. Alternately, Mirador can provide pointers to the ftp location of the data, which can also be copied with "wget".

Keep in mind that the data is not yet a complete time series. Links to production status are provided above. However, there is a lag between production and data availability at MDISC required for quality checking of the data files.

If you do download data, please be sure to sign up to the MERRA news listserv at the MDISC site. As issues related to the scientific understanding of the data and system become known, we will make every effort to communicate this information to users. The listserv is the most direct way to contact users.

We are also forming a FAQ list and citation lists. The content of these are directly related to users providing information back to the GMAO.