Web-MARS is a set of web applications giving you access to MARS through your web browser e.g. by browsing the catalogue of MARS content, retrieving data etc. As Web-MARS relies on the archive's meta data, the interface offers the best description of the actual MARS content.
In Web-MARS you can click through the archive, starting at various entry points. This is in contrast to using a MARS request where you need to know exactly how to describe a particular field before retrieval.
When browsing through the MARS Catalogue you will end up on a page where to make your final choice of data and chose one of the following options:
- Check for availability
- View the MARS request
- Estimate download size
- Retrieve the selection in GRIB or NetCDF (experimental)
Web-MARS should mainly be used to locate particular data in the archive rather than to retrieve huge data volumes from MARS: Start with the most suitable archive 'view' to search for the data you are interested in, once you are on the last page (and probably after you have checked the availability of the data) choose the second option above, 'View the MARS request', and use the piece of MARS request, e.g. with further modifications to the date keyword, with the mars command in a batch job. The usage of the mars command and the MARS language are explained in some detail in the following sections.
Server Activity The MARS system responds to tens of thousands of requests daily. The duration of a retrieval depends on the number of concurrent requests the system is processing and the amount of data retrieved, as well as the number of tape mounts involved. You can monitor the progress of your requests from this page.
To find a particular data set in MARS start with a 'view' on the archive which is particularly suited for a particular search:
The MARS Catalogue pages are dynamically built from the content of the MARS meta data databases as you browse them. The MARS Catalogue represents the exact state of the MARS content. Every single one of the billions of meteorological fields can be reached and retrieved from there.
Data Finder Because the MARS Catalogue is organised according to the archive structure, it may not be suitable for quickly finding information such as: When were ozone fields first introduced in MARS? The Data Finder tries to solve this problem by fully indexing the operational part of the archive and allow you navigate this index in various ways.
Parameter Database This view will list for one or all GRIB tables the meteorological parameters defined in there, their MARS abbreviation, unit and whether or not they are archived in MARS. For many parameters this view will also provide links to the IFS documentation.
Changes in the archive These pages describe, in chronological order, the changes in the archive, such as the addition or discontinuation of fields, as well as missing data.