===================================================== Frequently Asked Questions About TAO Display Software ===================================================== TAO Display Software V3.2 July, 1995 This file contains answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about TAO Display Software. List of Questions: 1: What is the TAO Display Software? 2. What data plots can I make with the TAO Display Software? 3. What changes are included in the recent TAO release? 4: How do I get the TAO Display Software package and install it? 5: What should I do if I already have earlier version of the TAO? 6: I have installed TAO V3. What should I do to remove it or move it to another location? 7: What are the hardware and software requirements in order to run TAO? 8: What graphics package does the TAO software use? 9: What are the files under data directory? 10: How large are the TAO data files? 11: How often are the TAO data files updated? 12: How do I know if there are any updates to the software? 13: How do I check whether I am getting the most updated data files? 14: Will the TAO Display Software include latitude-depth and longitude-depth sections of temperature and currents? 15: Will the TAO Display Software include ADCP data? 16: What do I do when I encounter a problem? 17: What are some references for the TAO Display Software? 18: How can I access information about the TAO Display Software using NCSA's Mosaic package? 19: Are TAO Software versions below V3.1 still supported? Has PMEL's ftp server changed recently? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Answers: ==================================== 1. What is the TAO Display Software? ==================================== TAO Display Software is a graphical user interface which provides graphical display of near real-time data and historical data from the TOGA Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean (TAO) array of ATLAS and current meter moorings. The TOGA-TAO array is a major component of the global climate monitoring system, consisting of approximately 70 ATLAS and current meter moorings, spans the Pacific basin from 95W to 137E, in the equatorial wave guide from 8N to 8S, and telemetering meteorological and upper ocean data in real-time via the Argos satellite system. The TAO software is freely availble via PMEL's anonymous ftp: ftp.pmel.noaa.gov under directory tao/. TAO Display Software has been developed by: Nancy N. Soreide Project leader Willa H. Zhu Lead interface, system design and coding Dai C. McClurg Data and graphics specialist Donald W. Denbo Design TAO Project Office Internet: taogroup@pmel.noaa.gov NOAA/PMEL/OCRD 7600 Sand Point Way NE Phone: 206-526-6890 Seattle, WA 98115 FAX: 206-526-6744 http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/taows.html ============================================================ 2. What data plots can I make with the TAO Display Software? ============================================================ The TAO Display Software has following plotting features: * Buoy Summary Plot Displays (a) time series of wind sticks, dynamic height, and upper-ocean temperature isotherm depths for any TAO buoy; or (b) time series of wind sticks, zonal and meridional current transports, and upper-ocean current vectors for TAO current meter moorings. * Buoy Sensor Plot Displays time series from individual sensors for the last 7 months from any TAO buoy. Time series shown include zonal and meridional Winds and their COADS climatologies, Air and Sea Surface Temperature, and each of the sub-surface temperature series to 500m. * Stacked Plot Displays a vertical stack of time series for any combination of sensors and computed atmospere and ocean data from anywhere in the entire TAO array. * Section Plot Displays (a) Time-section (time-latitude or time-longitude) plots of variables (e.g. SST, Winds, 20C ISO Depth, Dynamic Height, Heat Content, Relative Himudity, Air Temperature, etc.); or (b) Depth-section (depth-latitude or depth-longitude) plots of Temerature. * Lat-Long Maps Displays latitude-longitude maps of monthly mean Wind vectors overlaid on gridded fields of variables (e.g. SST, 20C ISO Depth, Dynamic Height, Heat Content, Relative Himudity, Air Temperature, etc.). * Animation Displays movies of various fields from TAO array data and NMC model data. * Special Plot Displays various plots that are of current interest to the scientific community. New and interesting plots will appear in this category. Some examples of special Plots are TOPEX/Poseidon data, lat-dep and lon-dep TAO temperature data, the most recent submissions to the CAC and IGOSS bulletins and the TAO array map, etc. Other new displays may be included in the future. ======================================================= 3. What changes are included in the recent TAO release? ======================================================= The TAO Display Software was first available to public in June 1992 and several upgrades have been released to provide new features since then. Here are some changes made in the recent releases: V3.0 (released in October 1994) ---- * Current meter data available * Historical (gridded) data available * Hourly surface data available * User control most plot parameters * Help button includes information about the data sets * Data subscription service * Animations include observational data fields, NMC model- generated data fields, and TOGA drifting buoy data. * New "Section Plot" category - section plots are no longer in the old "Special Plots" category * No software purchases necessary V3.1 (released in Decemeber 1994) ---- * SST and 20C Isotherm depth climatologies included. * New special plot available: latest Latitude-Depth and Equator-Depth Sections of Temperature, TOPEX/Poseidon Sea Level data Time-Lon Plots, Lat-Time Plots, and XY Map Timelines of TAO data during the COARE period. * option to use NCSA Collage tool to display the animation. V3.2 (released in July 1995) ---- * Equatorial ADCP data available as contour plots * Zonal and Meridional Depth section plots * Wind Speed and Direction are available * User control of time axis on "Buoy Sensor Plots" * Data Availability for selected variables * TAO Array Configuration Maps by month and year ================================================================ 4. How do I get the TAO Display Software package and install it? ================================================================ The TAO Display Software along with the data files are available via PMEL's anonymous ftp account: HOST: ftp.pmel.noaa.gov DIRECTORY: tao FILE: tao_sun_tar.Z (for SunOS and Solaris) tao_sgi_tar.Z (for SGI/IRIX v5.x) tao_ultrix_tar.Z (for DEC/ULTRIX) Make sure the file is transmitted in BINARY mode. The TAO software in this directory is version 3.2 last updated in July 1995. You don't need to get any update_*.tar.Z files in that directory since the TAO package has included the most recent udpates. To install TAO Display Software, uncompress and untar file, e.g. % zcat tao_sun_tar.Z | tar -xovf - This will generate a directory taohome/ under the current directory. Then start installation script, install.tao3. This installation script is provided for user to install the software and setup the data subscription which will start the TAO data automated delivery. Refer to file INSTALL for details about software installation. ================================================================= 5. What should I do if I already have earlier version of the TAO? ================================================================= If your TAO version is earlier than V3.0 then we suggest you to install TAO v3.0 from scratch (see FAQ "How do I get the TAO Display Software package and install it?" for installation information). Because the TAO v3.0 prevides access to a wider range of data displays, it is unnecessary and undesirable to keep older versions of the TAO software and data files. If you have already installed TAO v3.0 and have TAO subscription service (cronjob) setup to retrieve data files, the updates should be delivered to your machine automatically. Under your taohome/ directory, you should also find installation script install.newtao for upgrading from TAO v3.0 to v3.1 and udpate.tao3.2 for upgrading from TAO v3.1 to v3.2. You must run these scripts to complete the version upgrade. If you cannot find the upgrading installation scripts under your taohome/ directory, just retreive the most recent TAO tar file from PMEL's anonymous ftp, ftp.pmel.noaa.gov/tao, uncompress and untar it to overwrite your old version, then you must run "install.tao3 taopath" under taohome/ directory. ==================================================================== 6. I have installed TAO V3. What should I do to remove it or move it to another location? ==================================================================== First, there is probably TAO subscription service (i.e. scheduled cron job to retrieve TAO data files) on your machine running. You must delete these cron jobs before you remove taohome/ directory, and to do so you must be either the user who initially submitted the job or the super-user. * Case 1, You are the user who initially submitted the job. Before remove taohome/ directory, we suggest you to use TAO subscription interface to delete the TAO cron jobs (so only TAO related cron jobs will be deleted). % cd taohome % install.tao3 subscription The "TAO Data Subscription" window will pop up. Now click on "Set Delivery Time" button, you should see a "Set Data Delivery Time" window with frequency words "Daily", "Weekly" and "Monthly" delivery time. If you see "No Delivery" message after all these words, that means there are no any TAO cron jobs submitted by you. If you see "Deliver at hh:mm" after any frequency word, then you must delete it by (1) clicking on that frequency word (e.g. Daily), and (2) clicking on "Delete " button. You should repeat this until all TAO cron jobs are deleted. When you are done, just click on "Quit" button. * Case 2, You don't know whether there are any TAO cron jobs submitted or who submitted. You must be the super-user, then: % cd /etc/spool/cron/crontabs % grep taohome/subscirption/ftp_taodata * If any files are listed, you have to manually edit these entries. Please ask your system manager to help you if you are not familiar with crontab. Now if you want to move the whole taohome/ to another location, you can use any of these command whatever applies: "mv", "cp -pr", or tar the orginal taohome/, move to new location and extract it. * Remove the old taohome/ * cd to new taohome/ and setup taopath, type: % install.tao3 taopath To set new TAO subscription service, type: % install.tao3 subscription To set printer access by TAO if you moved to another machine, type: % install.tao3 printer You can also choose to remove old taohome/ and ftp the TAO software from PMEL's anonymous ftp (ftp.pmel.noaa.gov/tao). Then follow the installation instrcution to install TAO from scratch (see FAQ "How do I get the TAO Display Software package and install it?"). ======================================================================= 7. What are the hardware and software requirements in order to run TAO? ======================================================================= The TAO Display Software v3.0, requires the following hardware and software: (1) One of following UNIX platforms with color monitor (support for other unix platforms will be added later): (a) SPARCstation SunOS 4.1.x (b) SPARCstation Solaris 2.x (c) DECstation 5000 Ultrix 4.2x (d) SGI IRIS 5.x (2) AT least 10 MB for the software and 210 MB for the entire data files. (If you don't have that much disk space, you can choose not to subscribe to all the data sets. Refer to INSTALL for details). (3) XDS (NCSA XDataSlice) or Collage Utility XDS is an interactive 3D data analysis tool from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It is used by the TAO software to perform the animation displays. It is free from NCSA via ftp: HOST: ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu [141.142.20.50] If xds doesn't work on your platform, you can try using COLLAGE which is also developed by NCSA and available from above ftp. We have included both xds and collage excutables in TAO package for supported platforms. The TAO v3.1 has the option let user to choose using XDS or COLLAGE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note: For Macintosh users, you can not install the software on the MAC, however, you can use software from the MAC if your MAC has the following requirements: (a) An IP address on the Internet so that you can login to a UNIX platform that the TAO software can be installed and run. (b) Mac II or Quadra series with at least 8Mb RAM (could add the PowerPC). (c) A 12", 19" or 21" 8-bit color monitor. (d) MacX v1.2 or eXodus v5.0 (e) MacTCP (v2.0.4 is the latest), Hosts and MacTCP Tool system files (for IP protocol). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ =================================================== 8. What graphics package does the TAO software use? =================================================== The TAO graphics are all made with the Plot Plus Scientific Graphics package (PPLUS). PPLUS is embedded in the TAO software and can not be used stand-alone. You do not need to purchase PPLUS to use the TAO Display Software Version 3.0 or above. If you want to use PPLUS stand-alone (outside the TAO software), then you must purchase a site license. Contact Dr. Donald W. Denbo, Plot Plus Graphics PO Box 4 Sequim, Washington 98382 Fax/Voice: (360) 452-2156 Internet: pplus@olympus.net =========================================== 9. What are the files under data directory? =========================================== After you have installed TAO Display Software, you will find these subdirectory/files under taohome/data: TAO.option.defaults TAO.option.defaults.daily TAO.option.defaults3.2 merid_date_range.def zonal_date_range.def These files contains default values of setting for the TAO display software. They will be updated by automated data delivery procedure. dec94.dat This file contains buoy locations used by TAO. mask.cdf This file contains land and sea-floor topography data which is used to overlay land on the XY maps of SST, 20C depth, Dynht, and Heat content. taomap.plt TAO array map file. buoy/ directory contains buoy data files. *_dy.cdf are the buoy daily data, *_hf.cdf are the buoy 5-day data and *_lf.cdf are the buoy monthly data. hourly/ directory contains buoy hourly data. section/ directory contains Time-section data files. *_hf.cdf are 5-day data and *_lf.cdf are monthly data. depsect/ directory contains Depth-section data files. lat_lon/ directory contains LAT-LONG MAPS files. winds/ directory contains winds files. ===================================== 10. How large are the TAO data files? ===================================== The most recent version of TAO display software (version 3.2) requires approximately 200 MB disk space to store entire TAO data files. This includes the working space and: Buoy daily data -- 15 MB Buoy 5-day data -- 8 MB Buoy monthly data -- 3 MB Buoy hourly data -- 64 MB Section 5-day data -- 37 MB Section monthly data -- 3 MB Depth section monthly -- 17 MB Lat-long maps data -- 7 MB Animation data files -- 17 MB Special -- 24 MB Others (winds, climatology) -- 8 MB You can choose not to install all the data files on your system by subscribing part of the TAO data sets. ============================================= 11. How often are the TAO data files updated? ============================================= The daily, 5-day and monthly data files on PMEL's anonymous ftp are updated daily (to include the last day's data into the calculation). However, we encourage user to retrieve daily data on daily, 5-day data on weekly bases and monthly data files on monthly bases to reduce the amount of ftps throught the internet. ========================================================== 12. How do I know if there are any updates to the software? ========================================================== When you installed TAO Display Software with subscription service setup, the automated data delivery procedure will automatically deliver any updates to your machine. You can always check the "News Update" information by clicking "Help" button from the first TAO window, then select help subject "News Update". We will also send you email regarding any major changes to the software. ==================================================================== 13. How do I check whether I am getting the most updated data files? ==================================================================== One way you can do is to look at the modification time of data files under taohome/, subdirectories data/buoy/, data/section/, data/lat_lon/, data/winds, ani/ and sepcial/ for different types of data files. Using command: % ls -lt | more. It sorts file list by time modified with most recent on top. Another way is to check your subscription data delivery procedure output files. % cd taohome/subscription % ls -lt *.output You probably will see these files: daily.form.output weekly.form.output monthly.form.output which are the outputs from daily, weekly, and monthly cronjob. You can read these files to see what each cronjob was doing and what files it has delivered. The modification date of these files tells you when the last cronjob was run and ownership of these files tells you who submitted the cronjob. You must be the onwer of these file in order to list, remove or set these cronjobs, i.e. to run: % cd taohome % install.tao3 data_file or % install.tao3 subscription Please read taohome/INSTALL file for detailed information about option "data_file" and "subscription" of install.tao3. The on-line help is also availiable. ============================================================= 14. Will the TAO Display Software include latitude-depth and longitude-depth sections of temperature and currents? ============================================================= The lon-depth and lat-depth temperature sections have been included in TAO v3.2. We have no plans to include lat-depth or lon-depth sections of currents since the spatial resolution for currents is lower than for temperatures. At present, there are 5 sites along the Equator in the Pacific where currents are measured, compared to roughly 70 sites measuring temperatures across the Pacific in the range +/- 8 deg latitude. The TAO Display Software (v3.0 or up) does include displays of current data from 4 of the current meter moorings as "Buoy Summary Plots" using the Currents DataBase and "Stacked plots". ==================================================== 15. Will the TAO Display Software include ADCP data? ==================================================== ADCP data have been included in TAO v3.2. ADCP data consist of daily mean zonal and meridional currents gridded to standard depths. ADCP data area available for these buoys: 110W, 140W, 170W, 165E, 156E, and 147E. ============================================ 16. What do I do when I encounter a problem? ============================================ If you have any questions or comments, contact: TAO Project Office Internet: taogroup@pmel.noaa.gov NOAA/PMEL/OCRD OMNET: TAO.PMEL 7600 Sand Point Way NE Phone: 206-526-6890 Seattle, WA 98115 FAX: 206-526-6744 ====================================== 17. What are some relevant references? ====================================== Hayes, S.P., L.J. Mangum, J. Picaut, A. Sumi and K. Takeuchi (1991): TOGA-TAO: A moored array for real-time measurements in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Bull. Am. Met. Soc., 72 (3), 339-347. McPhaden, M.J., 1993: TOGA-TAO and the 1991-93 El Nino-Southern Oscillation Event. Oceanography, 6, 36-44. Soreide, N.N., D.C. Mc Clurg, D.W. Denbo, W.H.Zhu, D.J. Doll, L.J.Mangum, L.D. Stratton, and S.P. Hayes, 1992: "Atlas Data Management and Interactive Data Display for the TOGA-TAO Array of Moored Buoys." Proceedings of the MTS'92 Conference, Vol II, October 19 21, 1992, Washington, D.C., p. 457 463. Soreide, N.N., D.W. Denbo, D.C. McClurg, W.H. Zhu, and S.P. Hayes, 1993: "TAO Workstation Display Software for the TOGA-TAO Equatorial Array of Moored ATLAS and Current Meter Buoys." Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography and Hydrology. January 17 22, 1993, Anaheim, CA, p. 315 320. Soreide, N.N., D.C. McClurg, W.H. Zhu, M.J. McPhaden, L.J. Mangum and D.W. Denbo (1994): Distribution and display of TOGA-TAO buoy data. Proceedongs, Oceans '94 OSATES, 13-16 September 1994, Parc de Penfeld, Brest, France (in press). Soreide, N.N., D.C. McClurg, W.H. Zhu, and D.W. Denbo, M.J. McPhaden, 1995 "TAO Display Software for TOGA-TAO Buoy Data." Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Interactive Information and Processing Systems for Meteorology, Oceanography and Hydrology. January 15-20, 1995, Dallas, TX, (in press). =============================================================== 18. How can I access information about TAO using NCSA's Mosaic package? =============================================================== There are Mosaic Home pages describing the TAO Project and the TAO Display Software, at these URL's: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/home.html http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/taows.html Access to displays of a subset of the TAO data is available via Mosaic at URL: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/realtime.html =============================================================== 19: Are TAO Software versions below V3.1 still supported? Has PMEL's ftp server changed recently? =============================================================== WARNING: Data Delivery Stops for older TAO Software V3.1 and Below on January 5, 1996. Data delivery for TAO Software Version V3.1 and lower will stop on Jan 5, 1996. The FTP server (csg.pmel.noaa.gov, 192.68.161.12) providing data delivery for TAO Software V3.1 or lower will be retired on that date. IF YOU ARE USING V3.1 OR BELOW, YOU WILL NOT GET DATA UPDATES AFTER JAN 5, 1996. Users of TAO Software V3.2 will be unaffected. The version number is at the top of the main TAO Software window and under HELP - News Updates. If you are using an older version (V3.1 or lower), please update. The current version, V3.2, has improved features, which are described along with installation information on the World Wide Web at: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/taows.html, and in PMEL's new anonymous ftp at ftp.pmel.noaa.gov (161.55.64.4) in directory /tao. If you would like assistance in upgrading, or if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us at taogroup@pmel.noaa.gov.