This FTP directory contains ISH/ISD software and metadata.  The files included are:

- The station history, both in ASCII text format and in Excel format:
ish-history.txt and ish-history.csv -- note that this station history covers the full
period of record for ISD, so some stations listed in this file have no recent data.

- A country list with the FIPS ID for each country:
country-list.txt

- An inventory of the ISD data by station-year-month:
ish-inventory.txt and ".csv" (compressed = ".z")

- The data format documentation, required to read and interpret the data:
ish-format-document.pdf

- A technical report describing the ISD development process:
ish-tech-report.pdf

- A paper describing the ISD quality control process:
ish-qc.pdf

- A list of known systematic problems in the data:
ish-problems.txt

- A UNIX command line program to convert the ISD data into a space-delimited / abbreviated format:
ishgetarg.exe (this is in the ishconv subdirectory). See more information on ishgetarg.exe below.

- Format documentation for the space-delimited format produced by ishgetarg.exe:
ish-abbreviated.txt

- A perl program to display/read the data:
isd_display.pl and Cl_args.pm

- A C-program to display the data in an abbreviated format:
/ishconv subdirectory contains the software

- Fortran software to use with the data--the following set of subroutines read ISD
formatted data and produce a summary of day record for each day; but the routines 
can be modified or used as a starting point for reading and manipulating the data:
addsec.f  (manipulates additional data section)
daily.f   (does daily summarization)
dat3.com  (common block) 
main1.f   (the main routine that calls the subroutines)
mansec.f  (reads the mandatory section)
precip_value.f  (manipulates the precip data)
sums1.f   (more of the daily summarization)
write1.f  (write routine for daily values)
ww_value.f  (manipulates present weather values) 


IMPORTANT NOTE:  The non-U.S. data in ISD are subject to WMO Resolution 40 restrictions, and cannot be 
redistributed to other users or customers.

The directory and all contents are accessible via web browser:
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ish/
Or via direct ftp:
Ftp to ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov
login as ftp or as anonymous
password is your email address
cd to /pub/data/ish
get or mget files as needed--in ascii or bin mode (bin required for any non-ascii file)

Additional information on ishgetarg.exe:

Files and their description (note - all files reside in ish/ishconv directory):

    * ishgetarg.exe - UNIX command line version of executable program (compiled on Redhat Linux 5)
    * ishgetarg.mk - File containing compiler instructions in case the exe is not compatible with user's UNIX version.  Uses g++ (GNU C++ compiler)
    * cl_args.C - Source module. Only necessary if code must be compiled
    * ishfile.C - Source module. Only necessary if code must be compiled
    * ishfile.hpp - Source module. Only necessary if code must be compiled
    * ishgetarg.C - Source module. Only necessary if code must be compiled


To run the executable program you must have an ISH-formatted file to serve as input.  Here is a sample command to execute the program:

    ishgetarg.exe ifn=913340-40505-2009 ofn=913340-40505-2009.out

...where "ifn" is the ISH-formatted input file name and "ofn" is the output file name to contain the simplified format data created by the program.

If the executable program does not run in your UNIX environment you can compile the code using this command:

    make -f ishgetarg.mk

You may need to download and install g++ (GNU C++ compiler)

Any inquiries, contact ncdc.orders@noaa.gov, or 828-271-4800.
 
Neal Lott
Data Access Branch
NOAA's National Climatic Data Center