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In general, the static sample dataset  is not suitable for initialising an NWP model.  Although encoding examples of all parameters at all forecast steps are provided, for those parameters on constant pressure levels, for example, only the 1hPa level is provided.  However, users that use initial and lateral boundary conditions (LBCs) from ECMWF data to initialise and update their NWP models should note the change in the way the parameters on soil levels are provided as this may require changes to your code.  Instead of having four separate parameters at each soil layer (level), in GRIB2 there will be one parameter available at each of the four layers - see Soil temperature, volumetric soil moisture and sea-ice temperature, below, in Migration to GRIB2 - changes to encoding of parameters for details.

Other sources of ECMWF GRIB2 data that can be used for testing

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