This section concerns subsurface profiling floats (also called Argo floats), expendable bathythermographs (XBT soundings ) and ship based instruments. Related alphanumeric codes are FM63 BATHY and FM64 TESAC.
BUFR template used for profiling float data is TM315003. GTS headers start with character string 'IOP'.
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BUFR template used for ship based profiling instruments data is TM315007. GTS headers should also probably start with character string 'IOS' (information to be checked)'IOP'.
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Meteo-France survey on October 2016
A more precise survey was performed on Argo float data received at Meteo-France and for which the observation time was between the 1st of October at 00:00 UTC and the 3rd in the morning, TAC data were FM64 TESAC. Since Argo floats go to the surface every 10 days only, the survey does not take into account all operating float. It however gives some ideas of the situation. One may see that: some data collected in India and South Korea are not sent in BUFR - or not correctly decoded at Meteo-France; Canada sends Argo float data in BUFR only and the volume of BUFR data is globally higher than this of FM64 TESAC (95.9% vs 90.8%).
Meteo-France survey on September 2016
Profiling floats : Data are received in BUFR from all originating centres. Template is right (TM315003) and headers are starting with 'IOP' as they should.
XBTs : Data are only received in BUFR from BoM (Australia) and NOAA. Template is right (TM315004) and headers are starting with 'IOS' as they should..