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1 WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION WMO INTEGRATED GLOBAL OBSERVING SYSTEM (WIGOS) OSCAR/Surface User Manual (Version 0.8; 21 March 2017)

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WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

WMO INTEGRATED GLOBAL OBSERVING SYSTEM

(WIGOS)

OSCAR/Surface User Manual

(Version 0.8; 21 March 2017)

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Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 4

I. FINDING INFORMATION IN OSCAR/SURFACE ............................................. 4

How to navigate the portal....................................................................................................... 4

How to Search for Stations ...................................................................................................... 7

How to find specific observing systems, such as Radars, Wind Profilers,

Radiosondes etc. ............................................................................................................................ 9

Station report details .................................................................................................................. 9

Station characteristics ..................................................................................................................... 10

Observations/measurements ....................................................................................................... 11

Station contacts, Bibliographic references and Documents. ............................................ 12

How to identify the National Focal Point for OSCAR/Surface of a country? ............... 13

How to Search for Bibliographical Reference ................................................................13

How to Search for Instruments ............................................................................................13

II. CHANGING INFORMATION IN OSCAR/SURFACE ....................................... 14

The authorization and access control module in OSCAR/Surface.......................14

How to Log-on to OSCAR/Surface and register a new user ...................................15

How to create a new station ...................................................................................................18

Input of a new WMO Index No (WIGOS ID) ..................................................................19

Saving a station as a draft for further editing ....................................................................... 20

Recording changes ........................................................................................................................... 20

Closure of a station .......................................................................................................................... 21

Multipurpose station concept / duplicate stations................................................................ 21

Programme/Network affiliations and approval ...................................................................... 21

Editing of an existing station .................................................................................................22

Change of elevation of station or instruments ...................................................................... 22

When the edits cannot be saved ................................................................................................. 22

Session timeout ................................................................................................................................. 22

Editing Radars or JCOMM stations .............................................................................................. 22

How to copy a station ................................................................................................................23

How to delete a station .............................................................................................................23

How to get help and report bugs .........................................................................................23

How to make mass changes/Is there an API/how to synchronize existing

database with OSCAR/Surface ..............................................................................................23

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Table of figures

Figure 1 Front page of OSCAR/Surface ....................................................................................... 4

Figure 2 Search Tab......................................................................................................................... 5

Figure 3 Quick Search results ....................................................................................................... 6

Figure 4 Map Interface .................................................................................................................... 6

Figure 5 Search for Stations Screen ............................................................................................ 7

Figure 6 Search for Stations- expanded ..................................................................................... 8

Figure 7 Geographic coordinates search .................................................................................... 9

Figure 8 Drag and draw selection ................................................................................................ 9

Figure 9 The main sections of the station report ................................................................... 10

Figure 10 Recording the station history in the station characteristics section ................ 10

Figure 11 Station characteristics ................................................................................................ 10

Figure 12 WIGOS station identifier ............................................................................................ 11

Figure 13 Additional identifiers can be added under "programs/affiliations" .................. 11

Figure 14 Observations/measurements section of station ................................................... 12

Figure 15 Search for Contacts ..................................................................................................... 12

Figure 16 Detailed attributes of a contact in OSCAR/Surface ............................................. 13

Figure 17 Search for Bibliographic References ....................................................................... 13

Figure 18 Search for Instrument- expanded ........................................................................... 14

Figure 19 Access and role module in OSCAR/Surface ........................................................... 15

Figure 20 Login and registration of a new user ...................................................................... 15

Figure 21 User registration .......................................................................................................... 16

Figure 22 New station registration ............................................................................................. 18

Figure 23 Error message indicating missing fields ................................................................. 19

Figure 24 Locating a station that was previously saved as draft in "my stations" ......... 20

Figure 25 Recording changes ...................................................................................................... 21

Figure 26 Affiliating a data-series with a program / network .............................................. 22

Figure 27 Edit button ..................................................................................................................... 22

Figure 28 The copy action in the “my stations” screen......................................................... 23

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INTRODUCTION

The OSCAR/Surface User Manual consists of two parts. Part I, Finding Information in

OSCAR/Surface contains help on finding stations and observations in OSCAR/Surface. Part I is

useful for both registered and anonymous users. Part II, Changing information in

OSCAR/Surface, contains information on how to manage stations in the system. Part II is

mainly relevant for registered users, such as station contacts and national focal points.

I. FINDING INFORMATION IN OSCAR/SURFACE

How to navigate the portal

Figure 1 Front page of OSCAR/Surface

The home page of OSCAR/Surface (Figure 1) has been labelled with large red letters, A – F

for the purpose of describing the various functionalities of the website. Each letter corresponds

with a different functionality as follows.

A. The Home, Search, and Critical Review tabs

The Home tab allows for navigation to the OSCAR/Surface home page at all times. This

functionality is also replicated by clicking on the OSCAR logo in the upper right of the page.

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Figure 2 Search Tab

The Search tab brings one to the search functionality page (Figure 2) that allows for queries

to the information stored in OSCAR/Surface in a variety of ways:

• Search for Station – searching by observing station attributes

• Search for Instruments – searching by the instrument attributes within an observing

station.

• Search for Contact (Figure 15) – searching an address book of observing system owners

or points of contacts.

• Search for Bibliographic reference (Figure 17) – searching the records of peer reviewed

articles that were published.

The Critical Review tab is currently not activated as the Critical Review functionality will be

implemented at a later stage.

B. This section in the upper right corner of the webpage in Figure 1 houses the

links to pages for:

a. About OSCAR/Surface – Information about the development and history of

OSCAR/Surface

b. News – An archive of the “Latest news” updates from related to OSCAR/Surface

c. Glossary – list of commonly used terms in WIGOS and OSCAR/Surface

d. Frequently asked questions (FAQs) – list of useful questions for the users of

OSCAR/Surface

e. Links – list of useful links relating to WIGOS and observing systems

f. Support – A form requesting contact information from the user and a comments

section to capture the user’s request to be submitted to the OSCAR/Surface support

and operations team.

g. Feedback – A form for submitting feedback to the OSCAR/Surface development

team.

h. Login- The permissions controlled access to edit the data contained in

OSCAR/Surface.

C. Search – This text box allows for a quick text search across the description,

title, name, and address

The results are returned in a drop down menu, as shown in Figure 3 arranged by

categories:

a. Search for Station and,

b. Search for Contacts.

In the right corner of each category, the user may access all the search results by

clicking on the “View all>>” link associated with the three categories.

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Figure 3 Quick Search results

D. Quick access

The quick access section allows for searches by station name and WMO ID (under “Generate

station report by:”) to retrieve/view the station’s detailed information. Under “Generate station

lists by:” there is also the capability to generate a list of all stations (named “report” in

OSCAR/Surface) within a particular country and for a station type. There is a quick search for

contact names (under “Find people by:”) as well as that generates a report with the full

contact information stored within OSCAR/Surface.

E. Filter map

The filter map functionality allows for the display of world-wide stations on the map. By

default, all WIGOS component observing systems and other components/networks are

selected, however, the user is able to remove check marks from components to view only

those stations affiliated with the selected programs.

Figure 4 Map Interface

F. Map interface and download

Figure 4 shows the map plotting the observing stations in OSCAR/Surface coloured by the

categories “air”, “land or ocean surface”, “sub-surface” and “lake or rivers”. The map interface

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allows for the selection of individual stations by clicking on a station on the map. The user is

able to zoom in/out using the “+/-“ buttons on the upper left section of the map, or double

click on any open spaces in the map. The mouse can also be used to move the map to the

appropriate location of interest. Once the desired area is displayed, the user has the option to

click on an individual station to generate a report of that station’s information or choose to

download the map in various formats for offline display purposes. The download functionality is

accessible via the icon in the upper right section above the map (Figure 4) and allows for an

image export as a PNG, JPG, GIF, and EPS, and also allows for the station location information

to be downloaded in the KML format for use in Google Earth.

How to Search for Stations

Figure 5 Search for Stations Screen

The search for Stations, via the “Search” tab (see the previous section on Finding information

in OSCAR/Surface) stored in OSCAR/Surface, as shown in

Figure 5, is available for users with prior knowledge of the Station name via a drop down

menu under the button “Browse by station name”. Alternatively, other criteria may be used to

narrow the results to probable stations meeting those attributes. These search criteria are

available under the option “Advanced search”:

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• a “Search term” corresponding to a partial recall of the station’s name;

• the periodicity of the data being “Near-real time” or not, which is searched by checking

the box for “Near-real time” stations;

• the “Station Type” which is a categorization of the type of station at which an

observation is made;

• The “Station class”, which corresponds to the most frequently used attributes of the

Volume A codelist for Observing Remarks;

• the “Program/Network Affiliation” – a menu of WMO programmes is provided via the

button and allows for the selection of one or more WMO programmes for listing. The

“X” button allows for the selections to be removed from the search criteria.

• the “WMO Region/Country” – Corresponds to the various WMO Regional Associations

(RA), I-VI and the Members within each RA.

• the “Organization” – corresponding to the comprehensive list of supervising

organizations for all stations in OSCAR/Surface.

• the “Variable” – clicking on the second button, from the right, opens a menu that

allows to select one or more variables from the following domains:

o Atmosphere,

o Earth,

o Ocean,

o Outer Space , and

o Terrestrial,

each with their own subcategories to further refine the search as detailed as the actual

physical variable being measured.

Figure 6 Search for Stations- expanded

There are additional options for searching by Stations, as shown in Figure 6 that are

accessible by clicking on the “More Search Options” hyperlink. This reveals the options:

• Search by Climate zone – A climate zone can be selected from a drop down menu with a

list of the Koppen classification types.

• Search by Geographic Coordinates – There are text boxes that allow the selection of a

geographic range as “Longitude from” to “Longitude to”, as well as “Latitude from” to

“Latitude to”. It is possible to only insert a single value here. For example, inserting 66 into

“Latitude from” will show stations roughly above the polar circle. Only numerical entries are

valid for these boxes. Attempts to enter text and submit the search will result in an error

dialog with the message “The submitted data is invalid. Please look for the red widget in

the sections for more information.” Also noteworthy is the icon in Figure 7 in the middle of

the text boxes, that allows the user to manual draw a box around the region of interest

(Figure 8).

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Figure 7 Geographic coordinates search

Figure 8 Drag and draw selection

• Search by Elevation- the elevation range of the stations can be entered in meters in the

text boxes.

At the bottom of the page, there are two buttons: the “Search” one to submit the search

criteria and the “Reset” button to clear all prior entries.

How to find specific observing systems, such as Radars, Wind Profilers, Radiosondes etc.

One way to find stations by observation technology is to search by “network affiliation”.

Another way is to use the “station class”. As with all information in OSCAR/Surface, the

accuracy of the search results depends heavily on the quality of the metadata inserted into the

system. The table below lists how to find commonly searched observing technologies.

Technology Search by

Radars Network affiliation “WRO”

(under WIGOS/GOS/GOS_Other_Elements)

Wind Profilers Station class “WP”

Radiosondes Network affiliation “RBSN(T), or

Network affiliation “RBSN(S/T) under

WIGOS/GOS/GOS_Surface_Networks/RBSN)

Or:

Station class “WN”

Station report details

This is the result of a station search (or “report” as named in OSCAR/Surface) which displays

all station details (Figure 9), including the history of changes, as documented in

OSCAR/Surface. The station report is organized into the following five sections: “Station

characteristic”, “Observations/Measurements”, “Contacts”, “Bibliographic references” and

“Documents”, which can be expanded by clicking on the respective buttons.

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Figure 9 The main sections of the station report

Station characteristics

The station characteristics section (Figure 10) gives an overview of the general situation of

the station, such as country it is located in, coordinates, WMO identifiers and terrain

properties. All changes that are inserted in OSCAR/Surface are recorded and can be shown

here, together with the data of the change, when expanding the field in question, as shown in

Figure 11.

Figure 10 Recording the station history in the station characteristics section

(Note: Here only one position is recorded)

Figure 11 Station characteristics

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WIGOS Station identifier

Stations are identified by the WIGOS station identifier (WIGOS ID) in OSCAR/Surface. WIGOS

IDs are the official WMO identifiers and have to be used for all WMO stations from July 2016

on. An example of a WIGOS identifier is reproduced in Figure 12. Please see the initial version

of the Guide to WIGOS for more details.

An initial WIGOS identifier was created for each station and initially imported into

OSCAR/Surface. For stations formerly in Volume A, the WIGOS ID is based on the station

identifier allocated to the station by the country in Volume A. In case of Radar, GAW or

JCOMMOPS stations, it is based on the identifier used in these systems. This identifier should

not be changed, as it provides a historic reference. The administrator should be contacted if

the identifier should be changed nevertheless.

Figure 12 WIGOS station identifier

(Note: The identifier 0-20000-0-12497 is based on the indexNbr 12497 allocated to it in

Volume A. The first “0” indicates that the identifier represents a station, “20000” is an issuer

range allocated to WMO programmes or networks, whereas the third “0” is the “issuer

number”)

Multiple identifiers can be attached to a station to reflect affiliation with different networks or

programs. For this the dialogue “programs / network affiliations” can be used (Figure 13).

The program or network in which the identifier is used must also be specified.

Figure 13 Additional identifiers can be added under "programs/network affiliations"

Observations/measurements

This section shows all observations, past and

present, that are/were taken at the station,

together with details about the instrument

used, data processing applied and the

observation schedule. If the observations are

made under a Program/network, this affiliation

and the identifier used are also displayed here.

Observations are structured as “data series”

and “segments”.

Attributes such as data format and the data

processing centre are recorded at the level of

the data-series whereas observing schedule

and instrument used are stored in data-

segments. An example of a data-series can be

seen in Figure 14.

Major changes to the properties of a data-series

or data-segment may warrant closing the

current one and adding a new one instead of

simply recoding a change in the current one.

What is the difference between a

data-series and a data segment?

A data-series represents the entirety of

observations of the same variable taken at

this station.

A segment is a sub-set of these

observations, and represents those that

were taken without major interruption and

under roughly the same conditions.

Example: The sampling method and

observing schedule of a pressure

observation are changed to 10 minutes

and 30 minutes respectively, from 30 and

60 minutes on 1/1/2016. The current

segment is closed (end date 31/12/2015)

and a new one with the new observing

schedule created. The segment remains part of the same pressure data-series.

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This is the case when the characteristics of series or segment were changed to such an extent

that it is no longer continuous. The user may then decide to create a new data series or data

segment based on the following concept and example:

Figure 14 Observations/measurements section of station

Station contacts, Bibliographic references and Documents.

These three sections list station contacts, references and the available documents with further

information on the station. Station contacts include various roles, such as operators, national

focal points, maintenance technicians etc.

How to Search for Contacts

The search for contacts functions as a searchable directory of station owners or Points of

Contact (POCs). Figure 15 shows the options to search by name, either by entering the text

or using the drop-down menu to browse the entries, and the more advanced search using the

Contact’s country and the variables being measured at the station.

Figure 15 Search for Contacts

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How to identify the National Focal Point for OSCAR/Surface of a country?

In order to find the National OSCAR/Surface Focal Point, the list of all contacts is generated

using the “Search for contacts”, detailed “Search” - “WMO Region/Country”. The roles of a

contact are revealed when clicking on the person (Figure 16).

Figure 16 Detailed attributes of a contact in OSCAR/Surface

How to Search for Bibliographical Reference

Another function in OSCAR/Surface is the ability to locate any citations input for the station. If

the user knows the Author’s name or the year of the publication, the search can return the

stored references (Bibtex) corresponding to the matches. A keyword search allows for a wider

search of the text of the citation, as shown in Figure 17.

Figure 17 Search for Bibliographic References

How to Search for Instruments

OSCAR/Surface stores the instrument metadata according to the WIGOS metadata standards.

As such, a user is able to query the data for Manufacturer, Model, Serial number, and Period of

observation. Figure 18 shows the further search options available by clicking on the “More

search options” link, which reveals criteria for the Variable, Program/Network affiliation,

Organization, RA or Country of the instrument’s location, Climate zone, geographic

coordinates, and elevation.

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Figure 18 Search for Instrument- expanded

II. CHANGING INFORMATION IN OSCAR/SURFACE

The following section is dedicated to National Focal Points and Station contacts on how to

access and edit observing stations metadata in OSCAR/Surface.

The authorization and access control module in OSCAR/Surface

Only authorized users can change information in OSCAR/Surface. The administrator, working

at the WMO Secretariat, creates the login for National Focal Point (NFP) upon receipt of a

nomination from the Permanent Representative. The National Focal Points can in turn create

additional users and associate them with stations within their country. The National Focal

Points have the right to edit all stations in their associated country, whereas other users can

only edit stations they are directly associated with, as well as create new stations in their

associated country. Also, these authorised users can add additional contacts to a particular

station granting them editing rights to this station.

A Focal Point for a Network, such as a Focal Point for the Antarctic Observing Network

(AntON), has the authority to make changes to all stations affiliated with the respective WMO

observing system or network. These Network Focal Points are designated by the WMO

governance of the programme or network in question. This means that the approval workflow

for affiliating a new station to a network is not implemented in OSCAR/Surface, but it is left to

the Network Focal Point to make sure the process of adding the station has been followed,

before approving it in OSCAR/Surface.

The Table 2 details the access rights of the different types of users. Figure 19 shows the

hierarchy of roles in OSCAR/Surface.

Role Create Station Edit station Create user

Admin everywhere Everywhere everywhere

NFPs For their country All in their country For their country

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Contacts For their country Only own stations For their country

Network Focal Point everywhere Only own network For their country

Table 2: User role and access rights

Figure 19 Access and role module in OSCAR/Surface

How to Log-on to OSCAR/Surface and register a new user

The log-on or user registration procedure is needed in order to update information in

OSCAR/Surface. The registration has to be completed once. In this process the authorized

email of a National Focal Point or Station contact is synchronized with the Electronic Identity

and Access Management system used by OSCAR/Surface. To complete this initial procedure, a

new user needs to log on to the system (Figure 20).

Figure 20 Login and registration of a new user

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Figure 21 User registration

Registration consists of the following six steps as triggered by the system (Figure 21)

Note: Step 4 should be skipped, as supplying a mobile phone number does not work in all

countries.

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In case there is an issue exists with the registration the following message is triggered with

directions and further steps.

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Having completed this procedure, it suffices to supply the username and password to log on to

OSCAR/Surface.

How to create a new station

Once logged on to OSCAR/Surface, the Management console appears in the main menu. The

“register new station” dialogue can be reached from there. The form shown in Figure 22 is

used to create a new station in OSCAR/Surface.

Figure 22 New station registration

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The dialogue is separated into the same five sections as the “station report” page, each of

which allows to edit the elements corresponding to that category. Some elements, such as the

name of the station, are mandatory, and the station cannot be saved unless all mandatory

elements have been provided. Should incomplete information be supplied, an error message is

shown upon saving, indicating that some elements are missing, as shown in Figure 23. The

missing fields and section headers are coloured in red. However, it is possible to save the

station as draft to save the information so far supplied for later editing.

Figure 23 Error message indicating missing fields

Input of a new WMO Index No (WIGOS ID)

The WIGOS Identifier consists of four blocks:

1. the "WIGOS Identifier Series" (a number): For observing facilities the "WIGOS Identifier

Series" takes the value '0';

2. the “Issuer of Identifier” (a number): ISO 3166-1 numeric country code (E.g. Rep. of

Korea: 410);

3. the "Issue Number" (a number): Define own procedure or use '0';

4. the "Local Identifier" (a set of characters): Define own procedure (maximum of 16

characters).

Each observing station must have at least one WIGOS station identifier associated with it. The

station identifier(s) associate the station with its WIGOS metadata. Observing stations that had

been allocated with WMO Station IDs before the introduction of WIGOS station identifiers (i.e.

before 1 July 2016) may continue to use those identifiers. With the launch of OSCAR/Surface

these station were uploaded in the system incorporating the new WIGOS ID structure using

'20000' in the section "Issuer of Identifier". E.g. station 'INCHEON' is recorded as '0-20000-0-

47112'.

A Member for which there is an ISO 3166-1 can assign its numeric country code as the “Issuer

of Identifier” number for its newly established observing stations. For example, in the case of

Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), it is appropriate to use '410' as the “Issuer of

Identifier” number. This structure provides for an open range of station numbers that can be

defined and allocated by Rep. of Korea to its expanding network (i.e. 0-410-0-......).

If any of the stations previously had a World Weather Watch IIiii identifier, then an additional

identifier should not be created (the WIGOS identifier would be 0-20000-0-IIiii SI=0 or 0-

020001-0-IIiii if SI=1 - unless IIiii had been issued to more than one station in the past, in

which case the most recent would have issue number 0, and the others would be assigned

other issue numbers so that the metadata can be distinguished).

Please see the initial version of the Guide to WIGOS for more details.

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Saving a station as a draft for further editing

When saving a station as the draft, it is neither publicly visible nor can it be found via ‘search’.

To continue editing, find the station in the list of “My stations”. To locate the draft, open > My

stations > select Program / network affiliation (e.g. GOS) > click on ‘Status’, as shown in

Figure 24.

Figure 24 Locating a station that was previously saved as draft in "my stations"

Note that once a station is published, it can be edited (see ‘How to edit an existing station’)

but it can no longer be saved as a draft, as the station is already public.

Recording changes

The history of changes of almost all information in OSCAR/Surface is stored to be able to

better understand the station history and development of capabilities over time. Therefore, all

such fields have a date input field, in addition to the actual field capturing the information.

When completing such a field, the date at which the change actually occurred should be

indicated. For example, a change of instrument in a station may only be documented in

OSCAR/Surface after the technician in the field has completed the work. In this case, the date

when the instrument was changed should be indicated here, not the date when the information

is input into the system (Figure 25).

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Figure 25 Recording changes

Closure of a station

Set the “declared status” in “programs / network affiliation” to “closed”. Also set an end date

to all “data segments” that are affected (all, a priority). It means to edit “segment” and put a

date into the field “to”.

Multipurpose station concept / duplicate stations

OSCAR/Surface is observation centric and focuses on documenting the observations made at

the station. The concept of a station in OSCAR/Surface is mainly used for describing the

physical environment in which the observations take place. Therefore, it is possible that

multiple traditional stations that report with different identifiers to various observing programs

are grouped together in OSCAR/Surface as a single station. Each observation is then affiliated

to an observing program with its own identifier. At the same time physically identical stations

may have initially been imported as separate stations into OSCAR/Surface. It is the

responsibility of the station operator to decide whether stations should be represented as

separate entities in the system.

Program/Network affiliations and approval

In order to indicate that a station is related to a specific observing programme, the

corresponding data-series must be affiliated with such a programme. This can be done from

the observations/measurements screen by editing the data-series and selecting the

programs/affiliations sub-form (Figure 26). In some cases, joining the program may be

subject to approval. In this case, the programme focal point will receive an automatic e-mail

asking for approval of the request. While the approval process in not completed, the affiliation

will show as “pending”.

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Figure 26 Affiliating a data-series with a program / network

Editing of an existing station

The edit menu can be reached by clicking on the “edit” button which is shown on the station

report when the logged on user has editing rights to the station (Figure 27). To get to the

station report any of the quick access, search or map filter methods can be used.

Figure 27 Edit button

Editing the station is then done using the same form as the “register new station”, where most

of the fields have been already populated. It is important to remember that the date of such a

change must be documented in OSCAR/Surface, too, as described above.

Change of elevation of station or instruments

When the elevation of the station is changed, the elevation of the installed instruments must

be also updated if needed. The “propagate” button can be used to do this automatically. This

function should be used with care, as the instrument position is not always identical with the

position of the station.

When the edits cannot be saved

In case of missing information, the system refuses to save the change. This is especially likely

with stations that have not been edited yet, as the information may have been created with

incomplete information when the system was populated.

Another reason why the edits cannot be saved is an internal error in the system. In this case,

a red notification is shown, and the station will remain in editing mode. In such a case, it is

worthwhile checking whether the changes have been applied to the database or not. This can

be done by opening the station report in another window, while keeping the current one open.

If the latest changes can be seen there, it means that they have been saved by the system,

and the current windows can be closed. Otherwise, the changes need to be saved again to

make sure they are permanently stored in OSCAR/Surface.

Session timeout

The session is closed after 30 minutes of inactivity. Therefore, when making lengthy changes

with long pauses between edits, it is recommendable to keep a second window open to check if

the session is still alive before saving the edits. In case the session is no longer active, logon

again in the second window before saving the change.

Editing Radars or JCOMM stations

OSCAR/Surface also contains information that is regularly imported from external portals. This

is the case for stations maintained by JCOMMOPS as well as the Weather Radar Database

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operated by the Turkish Meteorological Service. Therefore changes to these stations cannot be

applied in OSCAR/Surface, but have to be made in the respective portals.

How to copy a station

Instead of creating a station from scratch, it is often easier to create a station by using an

existing one as template. For this, it is possible to copy an existing station. To do this, locate

the existing station in the “my stations” screen, as can be seen in Figure 28. From there it is

possible to copy it using the “copy” icon on the right. The new station will be opened as the

“edit” screen. Only relevant attributes are copied.

Figure 28 The copy action in the “my stations” screen

How to delete a station

Normal users cannot delete stations in OSCAR/Surface. The reason for this is that the purpose

of OSCAR/Surface is to document current and past stations in order to see historic trends.

Deleting a station removes all traces of it from the system, even for the period during which

the station was active. Therefore, rather than deleting the station, it is in most cases more

appropriate to set an end date of the data-series and set the reporting status of the station to

“closed” (see ‘Closure of a station’). Stations created for testing purposes can be removed by

the administrator. In this case the contact form can be used to request removal of a station.

How to get help and report bugs

There is a contact form in OSCAR/Surface that can be used for both to get help and also report

bugs. Requests submitted through this form are tracked and responded by the OSCAR/Surface

operating team and the WMO Secretariat.

How to make mass changes/Is there an API/how to synchronize existing database

with OSCAR/Surface

OSCAR/Surface will provide a Machine2Machine (M2M) API that has been under development

and will be available in the next release.

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Annex I – list of fields in OSCAR/Surface screen

The list of fields will be provided in the next version of this guide.

In order to get an overview of the information fields needed to complete a station, one can try

creating a “dummy” station, which is saved as a draft or not saved at all, using the “register

new station” dialogue. It allows browsing through all forms and fields required for creating a

new station.