Publication of circulation statistics based on FGGE Level III-b analyses produced by GFDL and ECMWF.

The objective of this article is to publicize the availability of two data reports containing detailed compilations of circulation statistics for the FGGE (First GARP Global Experiment; later renamed the Global Weather Experiment) year, which extends from December 1978 to November 1979. The first report documents the three-dimensional distributions of selected time-averaged, variance and covariance statistics as computed using twice-daily Level III- b analyses produced by GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory). The second report offers a thorough comparison between the GFDL statistics displayed in Report A and the corresponding quantities computed using Level III-b analyses generated by ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) during SOP-1 (First Special Observing Period; approximately corresponding to the months of January and February 1979) and SOP-2 (May and June 1979). Daily global maps of the windfield at 200 and 850 mb, geopotential height at 50, 300, and 500 mb, and sea-level pressure have already been compiled by Bjorheim et al. (1981) for the ECMWF analyses, and by Polshay et al (1983) for the GFDL analyses. A list of the statistics incorporated in Reports A and B is given in Sections 2 and 3, respectively. Highlights of differences between the GFDL and ECMWF statistics are presented in Section 4. The discussions in Sections 2-4 are elucidated by figures extracted directly from Reports A and B. -from Author