Kobayashi et al(2015), J.Meteor.Soc.Japan: The JRA-55 Reanalysis: General Specifications and Basic Characteristics

A documentation of JMA’s reanalysis JRA-55 is now available on Journal of Meteorological Society of Japan:

http://dx.doi.org/10.2151/jmsj.2015-001

 

I’m not involved in the scientific content at all, but I’d feel guilty to some extent if it is hard to understand their documentation on the extensions GRIB Edition 1

http://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds628.0/#!docs

 

Not so many people in the short- and mid-term forecast operations would consider the WMO code FM92-XI Ext. GRIB Edition 1 is “active” format.  But the reanalysis community is different.  ECMWF reanalysis is distributed in GRIB1, and that’s leading the community.  I don’t say that’s good or bad.  My only concern is the documentation of GRIB1 has to be preserved and kept available for future reference.