Migration of humidity variable in OSCAR/Surface and changes to measurement units

Migration of humidity variable in OSCAR/Surface and changes to measurement units

by Luis Filipe NUNES -
Number of replies: 0

Dear WIGOS community,

(this is a copy of the message circulated to the National Focal Points (NFPs) on OSCAR/Surface on 13 November 2023)

OSCAR/Surface uses the official vocabularies of the WIGOS Metadata Standard (WMDS) that are registered and described online at the WMO Codes Registry [http://codes.wmo.int/] which are part of the WMO Manual on Codes [WMO-No. 306]. 

The code lists in WMO Code Registry are regularly updated, based on proposals by the responsible Expert Team(s). You are kindly reminded that following recent Fast Track procedures the following updates have been adopted by WMO:

  1. The variable 251, “Humidity (at specified distance from reference surface)" has been superseded by 12249, "Relative humidity (with respect to water)", 
  2. The notation of various entries in the “Measurement unit” code list has changed – please find attached a list of those updated entries. 

The full updated code lists for “Observed variable - measurand (atmosphere)” and for “Measurement unit” are available, respectively at: 

http://codes.wmo.int/wmdr/ObservedVariableAtmosphere 
http://codes.wmo.int/wmdr/unit. 

The WMO Secretariat, in coordination with MeteoSwiss, is planning to implement both changes to reflect the updated code lists in OSCAR/Surface, including updating the metadata for all stations that currently use variable 251 and replace it by variable 12249. This change is scheduled to be applied on Thursday, 7th December 2023. 

Kindly note that from the 7th of December any metadata being submitted to OSCAR/Surface via a machine-to-machine process should be generated and submitted in accordance to the new notations mentioned in this notification. 

This is not a request to change anything to stations metadata under your responsibility in OSCAR/Surface. 

Those NFPs on OSCAR/Surface and their delegates (metadata editors, station contacts) are only kindly requested to verify, after the 7th of December, the results of the above-mentioned changes to stations metadata under their responsibility and to further review/update any metadata entries in OSCAR/Surface, if needed. 

Please feel free to contact us in case you have any queries or comments to this message. 

Thank you for your attention, kind regards,

Luis