Atlantic extratropical cyclone tracks in 41 years of ERA5 and CFSR/CFSv2 databases
Description
This cyclone database was developed mainly to support oceanography and ocean engineering studies. *Method: - The method applied is for extratropical cyclones, following the method described in Analysis of Atlantic extratropical storm tracks characteristics in 41 years of ERA5 and CFSR/CFSv2 databases [Gramcianinov et al., 2020 at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2020.108111] - TRACK program (Hodges, 1994; 1995; 1999; Hoskins and Hodges 2002; 2005). *Data source: - ERA5 (ECMWF) - 1 hourly - from 1979 to 2019; ERA5 is the fifth generation of reanalysis from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) (Hersbach and Dee 2016) - CFSR (NCEP) - 1 hourly - from 1979 to May/2011 - CFSv2 (NCEP) - 1 hourly - from April/2011 to 2019 The Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR; Saha et al. 2010) and Climate Forecast System version 2 (CFSv2; Saha et al. 2014) are from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) *Data format (csv) and names: - path: "DATA_SOURCE"/"area"/ where: --> "DATA SOURCE" can be ERA5 or CFS - CFS path contains both CFSR and CFSv2 as they are complementary; --> "area" is the region (Extratropical South Atlantic "ExSAt" or Extratropical North Atlantic "ExNAt"). - filenames: ff_cyc_"area"_"data_source"_YYYYMM.csv, e.g., ff_cyc_ExSAt_era5_200108.csv. - columns: track id, date (UTC), longitude (0 - 360º), latitude, T42 vorticity - track id: the tracks are numbered by year, following the format of YYYYXXXX. E.g., 19790001 is the first track of 1979. In this way, each cyclone/track has a unique ID in the database. - the tracks are organized in monthly files, which contains all tracks that start in the selected month, even if it ends in the next one. - the T42 vorticity is the central minimum vorticity used to the cyclone detection. It is not the "real" vorticity, but the filtered vorticity used during the identification process and tracking (see Hoskins and Hodges 2002). *Next steps: - the cyclone base can be updated to correct errors and to include improvement in cyclone detection - for more up-to-date tracks go to ftp://masterftp.iag.usp.br/EXWAV *This database is in continuous development. To report an error, make suggestions or questions, please contact cbgramcianinov@gmail.com - Project “Extreme wind and wave modelling and statistics in the Atlantic Ocean” (EXWAV) financed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia-FCT) under contract PTDC/EAM-OCE/31325/2017 RD0504, and by the São Paulo Research Foundation (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo - FAPESP) grant 2018/08057-5.