List of Acronyms

A

ADEOS Advanced Earth Observing Satellite
AER RRTM Rapid Radiative Transfer Model, developed by Atmospheric Environment Research Inc
AIRS Atmospheric Infrared Sounder
ALACE Autonomous LAgrangian Circulation Explorer
ALPEX The Alpine Experiment
AMDAR Aircraft Meterological Data Relay
AMIP Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project
AMIP2 Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (second project)
AMS American Meteorological Society
AMSU (-A, -B) Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A, AMSU-B)
ARM Atmospheric Radiation Measurement programme
ARPEGE Action de Recherche Petite Echelle Grande Echelle
ASAP Automated Shipboard Aerological Programme
ASTEX Atlantic Stratocumulus Transition Experiment
ATM Asynchronous Transport Mechanism
ATOVS Advanced TOVS
AVHRR Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer
AVNIR Advanced Visible and Near-Infrared Radiometer

B

BLUE Best Linear Unbiased Estimator
BOREAS Boreal Ecosystems Atmosphere Study
BSRN Baseline Surface Radiation Network - a WMO programme
BUFR WMO Code for Binary Universal Form for Reports

C

Cal/Val Calibration and Validationa
CAS Commission for Atmospheric Sciences (of the WMO)
CAS/JSC Commission for Atmospheric Sciences/Joint Scientific Committee
CATCH An ocean experiment, North Atlantic, 1997
CBS Commission for Basic Systems (WMO)
CD-ROM Compact Digital Read Only Memory
CEO Centre for Earth Observation
CEOS Committee on Earth Observing Satellites
CERES Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System
CERFACS Centre Europeen de Recherche et de Formation Avancee en Calcul Scientific
CFS Common File System (see Datatree)
CGC Co-ordination Group for the Composite Observing System for the North Atlantic
CGIAR Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
CIP Catalogue Interoperability Protocol
CLIVAR WCRP Study of Climate Variability and Predictability
CLIPPER
CNES Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (Toulouse)
CNRM Centre National de Recherches Meteorologie (M-F, France)
COADS Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set
COARE Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (a TOGA experiment)
COMPARE Comparison of Mesoscale Prediction and Research Experiments
COSNA Composite Observing System for the North Atlantic
CPTEC/INPE Centro de Previsao do Tempo e Estudos Climaticos and Instituto de Pesquisas Espaciais (Brazil)
CRM Cloud Resolving Model
CZ Coastal Zone

D

DAAC Distributed Active Archive Center
DAO Data Assimilation Office (of NASA)
DAWN Distributed Applications over Wide-area Network
DCE Distributed Computing Environment
DEC Digital Equipment Corporation
DECNET DEC Telecommunications Protocol
DFI Digital Filter Initialization
DFS Distributed File System
DHS Data Handling System
DIMP Data and Information Management Panel (of GCOS)
DKRZ Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum
DMSP Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (USA)
DUACS Developing Use of Altimetry for Climate Studies

E

EASOE European Arctic Stratospheric Ozone Experiment
ECFILE ECMWF File services based on CFS (on the IBM DHS)
ECFS European Centre File System
ECHAM Atmospheric Climate GCM (MPi Hamburg)
ECMWF European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
EDF Electricit\202 de France
EKF Extended Kalman Filter
EMOS ECMWF Meteorological Operational System
ENSO El Niño - Southern Oscillation
ENVISAT Environmental Satellite
EOF Empirical Orthogonal Function
EOS Earth Observing System
EOS-PM Earth Observing System - PM orbit
E-P Evaporation minus Precipitation
EPS Ensemble Prediction System
ERA ECMWF Re-Analysis (for 15 years (completed), for 40 years-40 (ongoing))
ERBE Earth Radiation Budget Experiment
ERS-1/2 ESA Remote Sensing Satellites - also referred to as European Remote sensing Satellites and Earth Resources Satellites
ESDIM NOAA's Environmental Services, Data, and Information Management
EU European Union
EUCREM European Cloud Resolving Modelling project
EUMETSAT European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites
EWSE Europe Wide Service Exchange
EWSE/ES Europe Wide Service Exchange Enabling Services

F

FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation (of the UN)
FASTEX Fronts and Atlantic Storm Tracks Experiment
FDB Fields Data Base
FECIT Fujitsu European Centre for Information Technology
FETCH An ocean experiment, Mediterranean Sea, 1998
FGGE First GARP Global Experiment
FIRE First ISCCP Regional Experiment
FNMOC Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceangraphic Center, USA
FRIEND Flow Regimes fron International Experiments and Network Data

G

GARP Global Atmospheric Research Project
GATE GARP Atlantic Tropical Experiment
GAW Global Atmospheric Watch
GCIP GEWEX Continental-scale International Project
GCM General Circulation Model
GCOS Global Climate Observing System
GCSS GEWEX Cloud System Study
GEBA Global Energy Balance Archive
GEF Global Environment Facility
GEMS Global Environment Monitoring System
GEWEX Global Energy and Water cycle Experiment (of the WCRP)
GHOST Global Hierarchical Observing Strategy
GISST Global sea-Ice and Sea Surface Temperature data set
GKS Graphic Kernal System
GLOBEC Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics
GMS Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (Japan)
GOES Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite
GOME Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (on ERS-2 satellite)
GOMOS Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars
GOOS Global Ocean Observing System
GOS Global Observing System (of the WMO)
GOSSP Global Observing Systems Space Panel
GPS Global Positioning System
GRIB Gridded data in Binary Form (a WMO code)
GRID Flobal Resource Information Database
GRIPS GCM Reality Intercomparison Project (for SPARC)
GTOS Global Terrestrial Observing System
GTS Global Telecommunication System (of WMO)
GWE Global Weather Experiment
G3OS Global Observing Systems of GCOS, GOOS, and GTOS

H

HAWKS'96 HITRAN Atmospheric Workstation'96
HEXOS Humidity EXchange Over the Sea
HIPPI High Performance Parallel Interface
HIRS High-resolution Infrared Spectrometer
HITRAN Molecular Spectroscopic database
HOPE Hamburg Ocean Primitive Equation model
HOTO Health of the Oceans
HPF High Performance FORTRAN
HWRP Hydrology and Water Resources Programme

I

IASI Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer
ICSU International Council of Scientific Unions
IFS Integrated Forecasting System
IGAC International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Programme
IGBP International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
IGBP-DIS IGBP Data and Information System
IGOS International Global Observing Strategy
IGY International Geophysical Year
IHP International Hydrological Programme
INRIA Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique
ILTER International Long Term Ecological Research
INTAS International Association for the Promotion of Co-operation with Scientists from the new Independent States of the Former Soviet Union
INTERNET International telecommunications research network
IOC Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
IORAS P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
ISCCP International Satellite Cloud Climatology Programme
ISLCP International Satellite Land Surface Project
ISLSCP International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project
ITOS Improved TIROS Operational System
ITOS-1 First Improved TIROS Operational System (ITOS) spacecraft, launched Jan 1970 (NOAA-1 the second   ITOS spacecraft, NOAA-2 the first of ITOS-D series, NOAA-3 the second)

J

JASON The satellite series planned as follow on to TOPEX/Poseidon; JASON-1 will be the first of these.
Jb Distance to the background fields
Jc Distance to the slow manifold
Jo Distance to the observations
JSC/SCOR Joint Scientific Committee (of the WCRP)/Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research
JGOFS Joint Global Ocean Flux Study
J-GOOS Joint Scientific and Technical Committee of GOOS
JMA Japan Meteorological Agency
JSTC Joint Scientific and Technical Committee

K

KF Kalman Filter
KNMI Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute)

L

LBA Large Scale Biological-Atmosphere Experiment Amazonia
LES Large Eddy Simulation
LMR Living Marine Resources
LODYC Laboratoire d'Oc<E9>anographie Dynamique et de Climatologie (Paris)
LOICZ Land Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone
L31, L51 ... 31, 51 ........ levels in the Centre's forecasting models

M

MAGICS ECMWF graphics package
MARS Meteorological Archive and Retrieval System
MERCATOR
METAR ICAO code for Meteorological Aeronautical Reports
METOP Meteorological Operational Satellite
METVIEW Generalized data access, manipulation and visualization system for meteorological data
M-F Meteo-France
MIPAS Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding
MODIS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
MOMA Ocean model version created at Southampton Oceangraphy Centre
MPI Message Passing Interface
MPI-IO Message Passing Interface (input / output)
MPI Max Planck Institut fur Meteorogie (Germany)
MPP Massively Parallel Processing
MSG METEOSAT Second Generation
MOZAIC Measurement of Ozone by Airbus in-Service Aircraft
MSU Microwave sounding unit
MVS IBM Operating System
M1QN3 Quasi-Newton Minimization package

N

NAOS North American Atmospheric Observing System
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration (USA)
NCAR National Center for Atmospheric Research (USA)
NCEP National Centers for Environmental Prediction (USA)
NESDIS National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, USA
NMS National Meterorological Service
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NOAA-1,-2,... NOAA operational polar orbiting satellites:

NOPEX Northern Hemisphere Climate-process Land-surface Experiment
NSCAT NASA Scatterometer
NWP Numerical Weather Prediction

O

OASIS Ocean Atmosphere Sea Ice Soil (CERFACS imulation software for coupled models)
OCTS Ocean Color Temperature Scanner
OI Optimum Interpolation
OOPC Ocean Observing Panel for Climate
OLR Outgoing Longwave Radiation
OPA The ocean model of Laboratoire d'Oceanographic Dynamique et de Climatologie
OpenGL Open Graphics Language
OPTRAN Optical Path TRANsmittance model
OSF Open System Facilities

P

PALACE Profiling Automatic Lagrangian Circulation Explorer
PBL Planetary Boundary Layer
PCMDI Program for Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (U. California)
PDUS Primary Data User Station
PILOT WMO code for wind measurements in the free atmosphere
POSIX Standardised successor to UNIX
PREPAN Software to PREPare IFS research analyses
PREPIFS Software to PREPare IFS research forecasts
PROVOST A Coordinated European Programme on the Prediction Of Climate Variations on Seasonal to Interannual Timsecales
PV-WAVE Scientific graphics package

Q

QBO Quasi Biennial Oscillation

R

R&D Research and Development
RAPS Real Applications on Parallel Systems (European Benchmark project)
RMDCN Regional Meteorological Data Communications Network
RT Radiative Transfer
RBSN Regional Basic Synoptic Network
RTD Real Time Data
RTOVS New NESDIS TOVS processing system

S

SAR Synthetic Aperture Radar
SBUV Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Radiometer
ScaRaB Scanner for Radiation Budget
SCIAMACHY Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Cartography
SEG Scientific Evaluation Group
SEMAPHORE An ocean experiment, Azores, 1993
SESAME Second European Stratospheric Arctic and Mid-latitude Experiment
SEVIRI Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager
SGI Silicon Graphics Incorporated
SHIVA Studies of the Hydrology, Influence and Variability of the Asian Summer Monsoon
SIRS Satellite Infrared Spectrometer
SKF Simplified Kalman Filter
SMMR Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer
SMS Supervisor Monitor System
SOC Southampton Oceanography Centre
SODA Studies of Ozone Distributions based on Assimilated satellite measurements
SPARC Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate (a programme of the WCRP)
SSM Special Sensor Microwave
SSM/I Special Sensor Microwave / Imager
SSM/T Special Sensor Microwave / Temperature
SSM/T-2 Special Sensor Microwave / Water Vapour
SSS Sea Surface Salinity
SST Sea surface temperature
SSU Stratospheric Sounding Unit
SYNOP WMO code for surface weather observations

T

TAO Tropical Atmosphere Ocean
TEMP WMO code for upper air observations
TEN34 Trans-European Network 34 (Mbits/s)
TIROS Television and Infrared Observation Satellite program
TIROS-1 ... 10 The TIROS series of satellites; TIROS-1 was launched Apr 1960 TIROS-10 in January 1965
TIROS-N the first of third generation operational polar orbiting satellites; subsequent satellites in the series were designated NOAA-6,-7, ...
TKE Turbulent Kinetic Energy
TMI TRMM Microwave Imager
TOGA Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere
TOMS Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer
TOPC Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate
TOPEX Ocean Topography Experiment
TOPEX/Poseidon Spacecraft equipped with an altimiter for TOPEX
TOVS TIROS operational vertical sounder
TRMM Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
T213, T106, Triangular truncation at wave-number 213, 106 ...; a measure of horizontal resolution of model supported by a non-aliased grid truncation
TL319, TL159, Triangular truncation at wave-number 319, 159 ...; a measure of horizontal resolution of model supported by linear grid truncation
T213/L31 T213 resolution model with 31 levels in the vertical

U

UK United Kingdom
UKMO United Kingdom Meteorological Office
UN United Nations
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNICORE Uniform Interface to Computing Resources
USA United States of America
USGS United States Geological Survey

V

VAX VMS Digital Equipment System for VAX computers
VIS-5D Graphics Visualization Software
VOS Voluntary Observing Ship
VTPR Vertical Temperature Profile Radiometer

W

WAM Wave Model
WAMP West African Monsoon Project
WASA Waves and Storms in the North Atlantic
WCRP World Climate Research Programme (of WMO)
WGCV Working Group on Calibration and Validationa
WGDM Working Group on Data Management (of WMO/CBS)
WGISS Working Group on Information Systems and Services
WGNE Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (of CAS/JSC)
WHYCOS World Hydrological Cycle Observing System
WMO World Meteorological Organisation
WOCE World Ocean Climate Experiment
WP Work Package
WWW World Weather Watch

0-9

4D-PSAS 4 Dimensional Physical-space statistical Analysis System
1/3/4D-Var 1/3/4 Dimensional Variational Analysis