Commandline Aspen

Aspen-QC is a version of Aspen that performs the Q/C and message coding functions, but does not provide a graphical user interface. Therefore, it can be run from shell scripts or the command line, to process a sounding data file in a standalone mode. The same Q/C and coding algorithms used in Aspen are incorporated into Aspen-QC.

The Aspen-QC executable is provided in the Aspen distribution for all operating systems.

On Mac OSX, an additional script, run_aspenqc, is provided. This script sets up the appropriate library paths, then runs Aspen-QC. Supply command line arguments to this script the same way as you would to Aspen-QC directly.

Aspen-QC uses the same XML configuration file as Aspen (aspen.xml and aspen.dtd), located in the user’s config directory. If the configuration directory is not set up, then it will search the current working directory for these files. If the files are not found, then a built-in configuration will be used. It is not recommended to use the built-in configuration.

Be sure to examine aspen.xml to verify that the desired configuration set is specified as the current set. Alternatively, a good practice is to always specify the desired configuration set via the command line switch.

Switches

Command line switches control the processing and output products from AspenQC:

Options:
  -i [ --input ] [=arg(=stdin)]   sounding data file
  -l [ --eol ] [=arg(=stdout)]    create eol
  -f [ --frd ] [=arg(=stdout)]    create frd
  -e [ --csv ] [=arg(=stdout)]    create csv
  -c [ --class ] [=arg(=stdout)]  create class
  -w [ --wmo ] [=arg(=stdout)]    create wmo
  -n [ --netcdf ] [=arg(=stdout)] create netcdf
  -g [ --svg ] [=arg(=stdout)]    create skewt svg file
  -b [ --bufr ] [=arg(=stdout)]   create BUFR file
  -d [ --dims ] arg               skewt dimensions pmin:pmax:tmin:tmax
  -q [ --qc ] [=arg(=none)]       Override QC mode: normal, pass, tddrybias
  -v [ --verbose ]                verbose enabled
  -s [ --config ] arg             override active config set1 (obsolete)
  -1 [ --config1 ] arg            override active config set1
  -2 [ --config2 ] arg            override active config set2
  -o [ --options ] arg            override config options opt1=val:opt2=val:...
  -x [ --sfcaltitude ] arg        sounding sfc alt (m) for upward integration
  -h [ --help ]                   help

• i – the name of the input data file. The file type will be automatically determined, and can be any of the file types that Aspen can read. If this parameter is missing, the data are read from standard input.
• l, f, e, c, w, n, g, b – Generate an output file of the specified file type. The output specifiers can take an optional file name, to which the data will be written. If not provided, the output products will be written to standard output.
• d – Specify limits for the Skew-T SVG image, in the format pmin:pmax:tmin:tmax. The fields are pmin: minimum pressure (mb), pmax: maximum pressure(mb), tmin: minimum temperature (C), tmax: maximum temperature (C). Skew-T diagrams can produce odd results for arbitrary plotting limits, and some experimentation will be necessary to determine appropriate values for the limits.
• q - Override the QC mode. QC modes that can be specified are normal (all Aspen processing applied), tddrybias (only the temperature-dependent dry bias correction applied), or pass (passthrough mode, output products are generated but no quality control is applied to the data)
• v – Print (verbose) status messages as the processing proceeds.
• s, 1, 2 – Specify a config set name to override the config set designated as active in the Aspen XML. The second config set option is for processing the descending leg of radiosonde data.
• o - Set the value for one or more config attributes. See the Configuration Parameters section for a list of all configuration set attributes. (Boolean config item values must be given as 0 or 1, not ‘true’ or ‘false’.)
• x - Override the surface altitude used for upward integration.
• h – Print out the usage statement.

An example of an AspenQC usage would be:

AspenQC –i classData.dat –e classData.csv -s editsonde –g skewt.svg

This ingests a CLASS file and creates skew-T and CSV output using the editsonde config set.