Decoders release 2.4.0

• To: decoders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
• Subject: Decoders release 2.4.0
• From: Robb Kambic <rkambic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 15:39:58 -0700 (MST)

Hiya,

I'm pleased to announce the beta release of Decoders 2.4.0.  This
release includes many changes as well as a new program, 'gribtocdl'.
Most of the changes are to add parameters and levels for new models
and grids, such as the AVN model on a 1-degree grid (avn-1.0x1.0.cdl).
The new 'gribtocdl' program creates a CDL file from GRIB files.  Much
of the work was contributed by Arild Burud and Terje Reite from the
Norwegian Service Centre for Climate Modeling at the Norwegian
Meteorological Institute. I wish to thank these developers on behalf
of the Unidata community.

Since this is a beta release, I would appreciate help in testing it
and reporting problems.

A couple of gribtocdl notes:

- Consider the created CDL as a starting point, minor tweaks are usually
 needed.

- The external table file feature for variable name override has not
 been tested much, but needs to be used with gribtocdl as well as
 gribtonc to override variable names.

- Default variable names follow NUWG conventions.

I would have liked to test the code more exhaustively but did not want
to further delay the release. If problems are found, please send email
to support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with information necessary to reproduce
the problem, error messages, and log messages.

Thanks,
Robb...


Included man page from gribtocdl:

User Commands                                        GRIBTOCDL(1)

NAME
    gribtocdl - create netCDF CDL-file from GRIB dataset

SYNOPSIS
    gribtocdl [-v] [-g tabfile] [-q qspecs] gribfiles

DESCRIPTION
    This program decodes GRIB products and generates  to  stdout
    the  corresponding  CDL code that can be used in gribtonc(1)
    to convert the GRIB products to netCDF format.  The  default
    parameter  translation  is made according to a definition by
    UCAR, but the user may supply  specific  translations  in  a
    separate  file  by  the -g tabfile option. The user-supplied
    translations will override the default ones.

OPTIONS
    -v   Verbose, reports decoding steps to stderr.

    -g tabfile
         Use GRIB-netcdf translation defined in this  file.  The
         format of this file is described below.

    -q qspecs
         Specification for how to expand so-called quasi-regular
         or thinned grids into rectangular grids.  This argument
         is a comma-delimited text  string  that  specifies  the
         method  of interpolation used (currently lin for linear
         or cub for cubic), and the latitude and  longitude  in-
         crements  in  degrees  for  the  resulting  grid  (e.g.
         dlat=2.5,dlon=5.0).


FORMAT OF GRIB TO NETCDF TRANSLATION
    The format of the translation table  is  as  follows:   Each
    line contains
        GRIB parameter number
        netCDF parameter name
        netCDF long description
        netCDF units
        An optional comment

    These are all separated by semicolon  (";").  To  comment  a
    whole  line, put any letter or special character (i.e. not a
    digit) in front of it.  Trailing spaces are  ignored  before
    each  semicolon,  but  not  after.  The GRIB number may have
    spaces in front.  Parameters found in the separate file take
    precedence over the default parameter table, those not list-
    ed in the separate file are unchanged.  All parameters  will
    be  named  with  a  level suffix in addition to the name as-
    signed in the separate file.

EXAMPLE
    The command
        gribtocdl -v -g my.tab sst.grib > sst.cdl

    will decode  the  products  in  sst.grib  and  generate  the
    corresponding  CDL  code  into file sst.cdl. The file my.tab
    contains a specific conversion table to be used when  naming
    a  parameter from GRIB. Later the GRIB file may be converted
    to netCDF by using gribtonc:

        gribtonc -v -g my.tab sst.cdl sst.nc < sst.grib

    The file my.tab looks like this:
        Grib;netCDF;long name               ;units;comments
         31 ;CI    ;Sea-ice cover           ;none ;(0-1)
         34 ;SSTK  ;Sea surface temperature ;K    ;
        151 ;MSL   ;Mean sea-level pressure ;Pa   ;
        167 ;T2M   ;2 meter temperature     ;K    ;

SEE ALSO
    gribdump(1), gribtonc(1), netcdf(3), udunits(3)

DIAGNOSTICS
    Error messages and log messages are written to stderr.



==============================================================================
Robb Kambic                                Unidata Program Center
Software Engineer III                      Univ. Corp for Atmospheric Research
rkambic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                   WWW: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/
==============================================================================