MEETING SUMMARIES

Abstract

What: Representatives, data managers, and tropical cyclone researchers from agencies and organizations around the globe that provide tropical cyclone best-track data met to discuss and improve the historical record of tropical cyclones. When: 5–7 May 2009 Where: Asheville, North Carolina despite the numerous articles in peer-reviewed literature using global tropical cyclone (TC) best-track datasets, until recently there existed no central repository of these data. Many researchers simply used best-track data from two sources to obtain global coverage: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Database (HURDAT) for the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific basins, and the U.S. Navy/Air Force Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) for all other basins. Aside from the many issues in combining data from just these two sources, doing so excludes data from most of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres (RSMC) and TC Warning Centres (TCWC), which also officially forecast and monitor TCs. Furthermore, there are similar best-track datasets from other sources. However, the two primary issues that have hindered scientists from using all available global data are 1) easily accessing the best-track data and 2) accurately combining these disparate datasets. The International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) project was formed under the auspices of the World Data Center for Meteorology– Asheville (WDC–Asheville) to address the best-track data accessibility issue by combining TC best-track data from all agencies into an integrated dataset readily available to the user community. Figure 1 denotes the number of agencies tracking TCs by basin. [Also see page 363 in this issue.] Note that there are numerous sources of TC intensity in the Southern Hemisphere and western North Pacific, which complicates data access and analysis. Therefore, the new IBTrACS dataset (Knapp et al. 2010; Kruk et al. 2010) provides the original TC intensities in a uniform format and catalogs the full range of reported values for pressure, wind speed, and position for each 6-h time step from each agency. The final dataset is available in a variety of formats in use by the TC community, which includes the original unedited data as received from each of the RSMCs. AFFILIATIONS: Levinson, DiamonD, anD Knapp—NOAA/ National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina; KruK—STG, Inc., Asheville, North Carolina; Gibney—IMSG, Inc., Asheville, North Carolina CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: David H. Levinson, NOAA/ National Climatic Data Center, 151 Patton Avenue, Asheville, NC 28801 E-mail: david.levinson@noaa.gov The abstract for this article can be found in this issue, following the table of contents.