Version 4.6.0 of the netCDF Operators (NCO) has been released. NCO is an Open Source package that consists of a dozen standalone, command-line programs that take netCDF files as input, then operate (e.g., derive new data, average, print, hyperslab, manipulate metadata) and output the results to screen or files in text, binary, or netCDF formats.

The NCO project is coordinated by Professor Charlie Zender of the Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine. More information about the project, along with binary and source downloads, are available on the SourceForge project page.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) EarthCube initiative is a community-driven project aimed at creating an integrated environment for the sharing of geoscience data and knowledge in an open, transparent, and inclusive manner. EarthCube is governed and guided by its Leadership Council, Standing Committees, Teams, and Working Groups. The community-based EarthCube Science Support Office (ESSO) is being created within UCAR in Boulder, Colorado to oversee and govern EarthCube project activities.

The Project Manager will hold a key leadership position in the ESSO, providing project management, project execution, outreach, administration, and other operational support to ESSO's efforts in contributing to EarthCube's success. The Project Manager will have a wide degree of latitude to support ESSO's mission.

GEMPAK 7.3.0 is now available from Unidata.

Source, tables, external libraries, ascii maps, and a Linux64 binary are available at https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/downloads/gempak/index.jsp

This release can also be directly download from github at https://github.com/Unidata/gempak/releases/tag/v7.3.0

Rosetta's wizard interface

By Larissa Gordon

Rosetta, one of Unidata's data transformation tools, is helping the scientific community with the standardization of data. Created by Unidata software engineer Sean Arms, Rosetta is strengthening the science community's ability to standardize raw data by providing an easy way to add appropriate metadata to ASCII files, allowing them to save and store the files in either an ASCII format (e.g. .csv) or in Climate and Forecast (CF)-compliant netCDF files. Most recently, Rosetta has helped Millersville University transform weather balloon data collected as part of a nationwide experiment.

Millersville University has been involved in an experiment known as PECAN (Plains Elevated Convection at Night). The experiment involves eight research laboratories and fourteen Universities. They share the common goal of finding the cause of an increase of mesoscale convective storms (MCSes) that occur at night during the summer months.

Earlier this year, the Unidata Users Committee asked members of the Unidata community to participate in a survey regarding their use of scientific software packages, software training, and community services, and to favor us with their insights into possible future directions for the program. The survey ran through early February, and collected responses from 261 individuals from 25 countries. Both the Users Committee and the Unidata Program Center staff thank those who completed the survey for taking the time to participate and for providing such thoughtful feedback.

The survey comprised 107 questions on a variety of topics (although the survey was structured to allow respondents to skip over sections in which they had little interest or expertise). Read on for a summary and access to the full survey results.