UK GLOSS

Hourly sea level data from Lerwick, Stornoway and Newlyn

Sea level data from Lerwick, Newlyn and Stornoway is available in British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) request format. This is a generalised output format to handle most types of data held in the BODC database. At the end of this page is a description of this format. The data is available at hourly or higher sampling intervals, relative to the PSMSL's RLR (Revised Local Reference) datum. To see a photograph or diagram of each tide gauge site, click below:

Data is contained in 'zipped' files. To download data, click below:

Station name	Gloss no.	Start year	File size
Newlyn	241	1915	6.3 Mb	Diagram	Photo	Datum information	Data
Stornoway	238	1974	2.8 Mb	Diagram	Photo	Datum information	Data
Lerwick	23	1959	3.6 Mb	Diagram	Photo	Datum information	Data

BODC Request Format Std. V1.0 lrec=  80 Headers=  15 Data Cycles=   1247 BODC QC (a)
Series:   12050 Inv: CMD  1008           Produced:1993/07/07                     (b)
Id:   048/0           United Kingdom    Scottish Office Agric. & Fisheries Dept. (c)
 57d18.1mN001d54.6mW                     Start:19700831095800 End:19701022075800 (d)
Depth: floor  22.0  sensor  18.0         Nom. sample int.:   3600        secs    (e)
    2 Parameters included:                                                       (f)
Parameter  f  P  Q     Absent Data Value  Minimum Value  Maximum Value     Units
LCDAEL01   Y 30 37                 -1.00           0.00         359.70     deg T (g)
Horizontal Current Direction            Eulerian method
LCSAEL01   Y 40 47                 -1.00           0.14          72.07    cm/sec
Horizontal Current Speed                Eulerian method
    1 FORTRAN format record:                                                     (h)
(I7,A20,A1,1X,F8.2,A1,1X,F8.2,A1)
  Cycle    Date      Time    LCDAEL01  LCSAEL01                                  (i)
 Number yyyy mm dd hh mi ssf         f         f
      1 1970/08/31 09.58.00    228.26     18.63                                  (j)
      2 1970/08/31 10.58.00    209.69     36.14
      3 1970/08/31 11.58.00    206.74     44.23
      4 1970/08/31 12.58.00    204.33     40.06
      5 1970/08/31 13.58.00    207.48     27.95

• The first record contains general information regarding the file. Std. indicates Standard format and V1.0 indicates version 1.0 of the format. lrec is the length to which the records are blank padded. Files produced for PC use will not be blank padded and will have each record terminated by a carriage return / line feed (lrec will be set to blank). Headers and Data Cycles are counts of the number of header records and data cycles in the file. BODC QC indicates that the data has been through BODC quality control procedures; this field is blank if this is not the case.
• Record two indicates the BODC series reference number and any inventory reference numbers by which the series is also known (in this case the inventory is the Current Meter Data Inventory). A reference to a second inventory may occur on this line. If a series has not yet been allocated a BODC reference number this record will start with 'File:' followed by the full BODC file name. This record also indicates the date on which the output was produced (yyyy/mm/dd).
• Record three gives the data originator's identifier for the series, the source country and the source laboratory. If this information is not available the record will state 'Series header information not available' and the next two records will be blank.
• This record specifies one or two geographic positions; if a second position is given its purpose will be described in the accompanying documentation. Start date and end date (if available) are given in the format yyyymmddhhmiss (24 hour clock and GMT). If time is unavailable hhmiss will be blank.
• This record gives the sea floor depth and the sensor depth. If a second (greater) sensor depth is given the two sensor depths specify the range of depths over which measurements were made. The second half of this record gives the nominal sampling interval and units.
• This record and the following title record start the parameter section. There are two records per parameter present.
• The parameter information record gives the BODC parameter name, whether the channel has been flagged with quality control indicators (Y/N), byte pointers (P and Q) to the start and end of the parameter within each datacycle record, the absent data value, minimum and maximum values of the parameter within the series and parameter storage units. The next record gives the full parameter name and the sampling method. (Units, parameter name and sampling method may be blank if series header information was not available.)
• This line indicates the number of following records which together form the FORTRAN format used to write each data cycle record.
• This and the next record are the data cycle title lines. 'f' indicates a flag channel.
• Data cycles are listed one per line. The first seven characters are always a data cycle count. One of the following quality control flags may appear against an individual data value (if the remark 'BODC QC' is present in record 1, then a blank flag indicates that the value is good):

   Flag  Description

   D     Thermometric depth
   K     Uncertain/suspect value
   L     Improbable value - originator's quality control
   M     Improbable value - BODC quality control
   N     Null value
   P     Trace/calm
   Q     Indeterminate
   R     Replacement value
   S     Estimated value
   T     Interpolated value
   W     Control value

The following annotated listing of a header section will enable positions of any required fields to be calculated (dummy values have been entered for all possible fields).

            1         2         3         4         5         6         7         8
   12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890

 1 BODC Request Format Std. V1.0 lrec=  80 Headers=  15 Data Cycles=   1247 BODC QC
 2 Series:   12050 Inv: CMD  1008WAVE  1234 produced:1993/07/07
 3 id:   048/0           United Kingdom    Scottish Office Agric. & Fisheries Dept.
 4  57d18.1mN001d54.6mW 56d12.9mN002d30.9mE start:19700831095800 end:19701022075800
 5 Depth: floor  22.0  sensor  18.0   19.0  Nom. sample int.:   3600        secs
 6     1 Parameter included:
 7 Parameter  f  P  Q     Absent Data Value  Minimum Value  Maximum Value     Units
 8 LCDAEL01   Y 30 37                 -1.00           0.00         359.70     deg T
 9 Horizontal Current Direction            Eulerian method
10     1 FORTRAN format record:

            1         2         3         4         5         6         7         8
   12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890

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