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| What is BUFR?BUFR (Binary Universal Form for Representation of meteorological data) is a binary data format maintained by WMO. The Metview BUFR interface is based on ecCodes and can handle both |
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The BUFR iconBUFR files are represented by this icon in the user interface:  Image Added
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Examining BUFR contentsThe contents of a BUFR file can be inspected with the BUFR Examiner, which can be |
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started up from the user interface (right-click examine on the icon) |
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metview -e bufr your_bufr
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Visualisation on maps |
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Some conventional BUFR observations types (such as SYNOP and TEMP) can be directly visualised |
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by Metview on a map view. In the user interface just right-click visualise on the icon to get a plot with the default settings. These |
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plots can be further customised with the Observation Plotting icon.  Image Modified
Visualisation on thermodynamic diagramsThe Thermo Data icon can extract thermodynamic profiles from BUFR, which can then be visualised in a tephigram, |
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Otherwise the general technique to visualise BUFR data is to extract a subset as Geopoints or CSV and then visualise the resulting scattered point data (see below).
Visualisation on other views
On top of the map-based visualisation we can generate
- vertical cross sections (see Cross Section Data and Cross Section View)
- zonal and meridional averages (see Average Data and Average View)
- Hovmoeller diagrams (see Hovmoeller Data and Hovmoeller View).
It is also possible to extract vertical profiles (see Vertical Profile View) and time series from GRIB data.
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The Thermo Data icon can extract thermodynamic profiles which can then be visualised in a tephigram, a skew-t or in an emagarm using Thermo View.
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Filtering and interpolation
The GRIB Filter icon provides the means to select a subset of fields from a GRIB file. It (and the MARS Retrieval icon) also contains some parameters, such as Grid, which allow for interpolation to a new grid.
Retrieval from MARS
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FilteringMetview comes with its own filter to extract BUFR data into Geopoints or CSV, which can then be easily plotted and are very well suited for data processing. The filter is implemented by the Observation Filter and Bufr Picker icons, the latter one is being able to extract multiple values per message. The Observation Filter's output can also be a new BUFR file (only containing the messages matching the filter). Image AddedImage Added Retrieval from MARSIf Metview has been configured with access to ECMWF's MARS archive, BUFR data can be retrieved via the Mars Retrieval icon. At ECMWF, MARS access is set up on all computer systems, while outside ECMWF the MARS Web API could be used in Metview (see the setup instructions here). Script language supportMetview provides full support for |
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list of available functions for BUFR can be found on the |
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Tutorials
The main tutorial about using ODB in Metview can be found here. There is also a shorter tutorial available on this page.
Gallery
The Gallery features a few ODB-related examples showcasing both the ODB Filter and ODB Visualiser icons.
lation) have access to a MARS archive, Metview can retrieve GRIB data via the Mars Retrieval icon. Once the data has been retrieved, the icon text will turn green to indicate that it has been cached; operations such as Visualise and Examine will work on the cached data. If any of the parameters in the Mars Retrieval icon are changed, or if Metview is restarted then the cached data will be removed.
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