1. Kobe Collection
The Kobe Marine Observatory, a field office of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), and its forerunner collected and stored marine meteorological observations by Japanese Voluntary Observing Ships in the form of logsheets from 1890 to 1961： Kobe Collection. In all, data obtained by merchant ships, fishing boats and research vessels number about 6.8 million. Though all the data after 1933 were digitized in 1961 under a joint project of JMA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the U.S.A. and have been widely used, the data prior to 1933 had not been digitized until recently.
Since 1995, under the guidance of JMA, the Japan Weather Association (JWA) conducted two-year projects to construct a digital data base of the pre-1933 merchant ships data in the Kobe Collection and their analysis.
This CD-ROM contains the newly digitized Kobe Collection data (see section 2) and related documents and figures for reference.
2. Digitized data
This CD-ROM contains the following observations.
- A total of 989,132 reports for the period from 1890 to 1932, which were digitized under the project of FY 1995 and 1996 and quality controlled in FY 1997. These data are named 'The Kobe Collection Marine Meteorological Data(KoMMeDS-NF)'.
- A total of 56,550 reports for the period from 1915 to 1917, which were digitized and quality controlled in JMA.
Although data covered the period from 1890 to 1932, no reports were able to be digitized in the logsheets of 1895, 1896 and 1897 in the above projects .
The observational data are archived in text file. The data are written in the format named the International Maritime Meteorological Tape (IMMT) (version IMMT-1), which is used for the exchange of Voluntary Observing Ships' observations in the framework of the Marine Climatological Summaries Schemes promoted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The layout of the format, Minimum Quality Control Standards used in the format and used codes are extracted from the Manual on Marine Meteorological Services (WMO No.558) 1990 edition, revised in 1995 and 1998, and the Manual on Codes (WMO No.306) 1995 edition. Please refer to FORMAT in the CD-ROM.
3. Contents of the CD-ROM
This CD-ROM uses the standard volume and file structure of ISO9660
Directory structure of this CD-ROM is as follows.
Document files are written by ASCII code(*.txt) or composed by Microsoft Word97/98(*.doc).
The digitized data in the directory KOBE are written by ASCII code with file name 'kobeyyyy', where yyyy is a calendar year.
The image files in the directory IMAGE are recorded in GIF format(GIF89a) and bitmap format which is available in Microsoft Windows.
* Microsoft, Windows are the registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
ROOT
|_README.TXT
|_READMEJ.TXT (Japanese version of README.TXT)
|_NOTE.TXT
|_ENGLISH (directory for English documents)
|_OVERVIEW.doc(document ：overview)
|_FORMAT (directory for data explanation)
|_READMEF.doc(readme document)
|_REMARK.doc (explanation on digitization procedure, etc.)
|_IMMT.doc
|_MQC.doc
|_CODES.doc
|_JAPANESE (directory for Japanese documents)
|_OVRVIEWJ.doc(overview in Japanese)
|_FORMATJ (directory for data explanation)
|_READMEFJ.doc(readme document)
|_REMARKJ.doc (explanation on digitization procedure, etc.)
|_JIMMT.doc
|_JMQC.doc
|_JCODES.doc
|_KOBE (directory for the digitized observational data)
|_1890 (directory for the 1890-1900 data )
|_kobe1890
|_kobe1891
|_kobe1892
|_kobe1893
|_kobe1894
|_kobe1898
|_kobe1899
|_kobe1900
|_1901 (directory for the 1901-1910 data)
|_kobe1901
|_kobe1902
|_kobe1903
|_kobe1904
|_kobe1905
|_kobe1906
|_kobe1907
|_kobe1908
|_kobe1909
|_kobe1910
|_1911 (directory for the 1911-1920 data)
|_kobe1911
|_kobe1912
|_kobe1913
|_kobe1914
|_kobe1915
|_kobe1916
|_kobe1917
|_kobe1918
|_kobe1919
|_kobe1920
|_1921 (directory for the 1921-1930 data)
|_kobe1921
|_kobe1922
|_kobe1923
|_kobe1924
|_kobe1925
|_kobe1926
|_kobe1927
|_kobe1928
|_kobe1929
|_kobe1930
|_1931 (directory for the 1931-1932 data)
|_kobe1931
|_kobe1932
|_IMAGE (directory for figures)
|_READMEI.doc
|_DIST (directory for figures of geographical distribution of the newly digitized Kobe Collection data)
|_d1890.gif, bmp(figure： data distribution in 1890)
|_d1891.gif, bmp(data distribution in 1891-1900)
|_d1901.gif, bmp(data distribution in 1901-1910)
|_d1911.gif, bmp(data distribution in 1911-1920)
|_d1921.gif, bmp(data distribution in 1921-1930)
|_d1931.gif, bmp(data distribution in 1931-1932)
|_d9032.gif, bmp(data distribution in 1890-1932)
|_SSTK (directory for figures of decadal mean annual Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomalies using the newly digitized Kobe Collection)
|_tk1891.gif, bmp(SST anomalies in 1891-1900)
|_tk1901.gif, bmp(SST anomalies in 1901-1910)
|_tk1911.gif, bmp(SST anomalies in 1911-1920)
|_tk1921.gif, bmp(SST anomalies in 1921-1930)
|_tk1931.gif, bmp(SST anomalies in 1931-1932)
|_SSTKC (directory for figures of decadal mean annual Sea Surface Temperature (SST) anomalies using the newly digitized Kobe Collection and the COADS)
|_tkc1891.gif, bmp(SST anomalies in 1891-1900)
|_tkc1901.gif, bmp(SST anomalies in 1901-1910)
|_tkc1911.gif, bmp(SST anomalies in 1911-1920)
|_tkc1921.gif, bmp(SST anomalies in 1921-1930)
|_tkc1931.gif, bmp(SST anomalies in 1931-1932)
|_SLPK (directory for figures of decadal mean annual sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies using the newly digitized Kobe Collection)
|_pk1891.gif, bmp(SLP anomalies in 1891-1900)
|_pk1901.gif, bmp(SLP anomalies in 1901-1910)
|_pk1911.gif, bmp(SLP anomalies in 1911-1920)
|_pk1921.gif, bmp(SLP anomalies in 1921-1930)
|_pk1931.gif, bmp(SLP anomalies in 1931-1932)
|_SLPKC (directory for figures of decadal mean annual sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies using the newly digitized Kobe Collection and the COADS)
|_pkc1891.gif, bmp(SLP anomalies in 1891-1900)
|_pkc1901.gif, bmp(SLP anomalies in 1901-1910)
|_pkc1911.gif, bmp(SLP anomalies in 1911-1920)
|_pkc1921.gif, bmp(SLP anomalies in 1921-1930)
|_pkc1931.gif, bmp(SLP anomalies in 1931-1932)
4. Note
(1) This CD-ROM was produced by JWA, under the supervision of JMA.
(2) The contents of this CD-ROM should not be republished or transferred without permission of JMA and JWA, and should not be used for commercial purposes.
(3) Anyone wishing to publish any results using the data contained in this CD-ROM should clearly acknowledge both the JMA and JWA in the publication. We suggest the acknowledgement, "The Kobe Collection data were produced by the Japan Meteorological Agency and the Japan Weather Association with the support of the Nippon Foundation."
(4) Three files, IMMT.doc, MQC.doc and CODES.doc, in this CD-ROM are the property of the WMO, requests to reproduce these files should be made to the WMO (see readmef.doc).
Any question and suggestion related to this CD-ROM may be directed to：
Maritime Meteorological Division
Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA)
1-3-4 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku,
Tokyo, 100-8122, Japan
FAX： +81 3 3212 6908
Research and Development Management Department
Japan Weather Association (JWA)
Sunshine 60, 3-1-1 Higashi-Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku,
Tokyo, 170-6055, Japan
FAX： +81 3 5958 8173
Reference
Manabe, T.： The Digitized Kobe Collection, Submitted to Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.
