Vector arrows for primary wave direction

Nathan Cool nathan at NATHANCOOL.COM
Wed Nov 4 14:59:31 EST 2009


Thanks Matthias and James! That did the trick. I sure do appreciate all the
help on this.

btw: I ended up having to use 270 to convert to the proper angle:

d skip(cos((270-DIRPWsfc) * 3.14159/180),3,3); skip(sin((270-DIRPWsfc) *
3.14159/180),3,3)

Thanks again,

-Nathan


On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Matthias Fripp <matthias.fripp at eci.ox.ac.uk
> wrote:

> That's right -- I just checked this page (
> http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/waves/products.html
>  ), which reports that the datasets use the "oceanographical
> convention", and this page (
> http://www.aims.gov.au/pages/facilities/oceanographic-buoys/ob-1.html
>  ), which says that the oceanographic convention is to show "the
> direction the current is flowing towards, measured in degrees
> clockwise from North".
>
> If you replace DIRPWsfc with (90 - DIRPWsfc), you can convert between
> the two conventions. So that would give you
>
> set gxout vector
> display cos((90-DIRPWsfc) * 3.14159/180); sin((90-DIRPWsfc) *
> 3.14159/180)
>
> Sorry about that -- I'm so used to the physicists' approach to angles
> that I forgot about the real world!
>
> Matthias
>
>
> On Nov 4, 2009, at 6:10 PM, James T. Potemra wrote:
>
>  Hi Nathan:
>>
>> Matthias suggestion is correct, but I think you need to be careful
>> with
>> the direction.  His calculation
>> presumes that the direction is measured counterclockwise from the east
>> (so a direction of zero would
>> be a wave headed due east, direction 90 would be headed north, and so
>> on).  The direction from the
>> model is probably compass heading (0 is north).  So, you might have to
>> add an extra step to convert
>> the direction angle.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>> Nathan Cool wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks Matthias. I sure do appreciate the help. That produced some
>>> interesting results, but it didn't seem accurate (arrows pointing in
>>> some rather bizarre directions). Perhaps though this is a data
>>> problem, and I need to grab different GRIB files? Currently, I'm
>>> using
>>> GRIBs from the NCEP server:
>>> ftp://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/pub/waves/latest_run/
>>>
>>> -Nathan
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 7:53 AM, Matthias Fripp
>>> <matthias.fripp at eci.ox.ac.uk <mailto:matthias.fripp at eci.ox.ac.uk>>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>   How about this:
>>>
>>>   set gxout vector
>>>   display cos(DIRPWsfc * 3.14159/180); sin(DIRPWsfc * 3.14159/180)
>>>
>>>   This converts the wave direction from degrees to radians, and then
>>>   calculates its u and v components.
>>>
>>>   Matthias
>>>
>>>   On Nov 4, 2009, at 2:38 PM, Nathan Cool wrote:
>>>
>>>    Thanks, but I'm not trying to display "wind" vector arrows;
>>>>   instead, I'm trying to display the primary wave direction.
>>>>
>>>>   The vars in the Grib are:
>>>>   ------------------------
>>>>   DIRPWsfc  0 107,1,1  ** surface Primary wave direction [deg]
>>>>   DIRSWsfc  0 109,1,1  ** surface Secondary wave direction [deg]
>>>>   HTSGWsfc  0 100,1,1  ** surface Sig height of wind waves and
>>>>   swell [m]
>>>>   PERPWsfc  0 108,1,1  ** surface Primary wave mean period [s]
>>>>   PERSWsfc  0 110,1,1  ** surface Secondary wave mean period [s]
>>>>   UGRDsfc  0 33,1,1  ** surface u wind [m/s]
>>>>   VGRDsfc  0 34,1,1  ** surface v wind [m/s]
>>>>   WDIRsfc  0 31,1,1  ** surface Wind direction [deg]
>>>>   WINDsfc  0 32,1,1  ** surface Wind speed [m/s]
>>>>   WVDIRsfc  0 101,1,1  ** surface Direction of wind waves [deg]
>>>>   WVPERsfc  0 103,1,1  ** surface Mean period of wind waves [s]
>>>>
>>>>   ...and I can see that others have been able to show the primary
>>>>   wave direction (DIRPWsfc) using vector arrows, as is the case on
>>>>   the FNMOC models like this one:
>>>>
>>>> https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/ww3_cgi/dynamic/ww3.w.npac.sig_wav_ht.000.gif
>>>>
>>>>   Do you know how this can be done?
>>>>
>>>>   Thanks,
>>>>
>>>>   -Nathan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 9:58 PM, sushant puranik
>>>>   <sushantpuranik at gmail.com <mailto:sushantpuranik at gmail.com>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>       Hi
>>>>       I am able to generate wind direction. try his
>>>>       'set arrscl 1 30'
>>>>       'set cthick 5'
>>>>       'set arrowhead 0.10'
>>>>       'set clevs 3 5 10 15 20 25'
>>>>       'set ccols 0 4 1 2 3 5 12'
>>>>       'set gxout vector'
>>>>       'd
>>>>       skip(UGRDsfc,2,2);skip(VGRDsfc,
>>>> 2,2);skip(sqrt(UGRDsfc*UGRDsfc+VGRDsfc*VGRDsfc),2,2)'
>>>>       'run cbar.gs <http://cbar.gs>'
>>>>       'printim wind(m/s)'
>>>>
>>>>       with the help of such script i am able to generate output
>>>>       which is attached with this mail.
>>>>
>>>>       all the best.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>       On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Nathan Cool
>>>>       <nathan at nathancool.com <mailto:nathan at nathancool.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>           Good morning everyone,
>>>>
>>>>           I'm generating wave analysis models, but I'm having a
>>>>           tough time showing the mean-wave (or primary) wave
>>>>           direction arrows.
>>>>
>>>>           The vars in the Grib are:
>>>>           -------------------------------------------------
>>>>           DIRPWsfc  0 107,1,1  ** surface Primary wave direction
>>>> [deg]
>>>>           DIRSWsfc  0 109,1,1  ** surface Secondary wave direction
>>>>           [deg]
>>>>           HTSGWsfc  0 100,1,1  ** surface Sig height of wind waves
>>>>           and swell [m]
>>>>           PERPWsfc  0 108,1,1  ** surface Primary wave mean
>>>> period [s]
>>>>           PERSWsfc  0 110,1,1  ** surface Secondary wave mean
>>>>           period [s]
>>>>           UGRDsfc  0 33,1,1  ** surface u wind [m/s]
>>>>           VGRDsfc  0 34,1,1  ** surface v wind [m/s]
>>>>           WDIRsfc  0 31,1,1  ** surface Wind direction [deg]
>>>>           WINDsfc  0 32,1,1  ** surface Wind speed [m/s]
>>>>           WVDIRsfc  0 101,1,1  ** surface Direction of wind waves
>>>> [deg]
>>>>           WVPERsfc  0 103,1,1  ** surface Mean period of wind
>>>> waves [s]
>>>>
>>>>           For displaying wind vector arrows it's straightforward as
>>>>           there are U and V variables (UGRDsfc and VGRDsfc) for the
>>>>           zonal and meridional components. Displaying primary wave
>>>>           direction though seems more elusive, yet I see it done on
>>>>           many models such as the following:
>>>>
>>>> https://www.fnmoc.navy.mil/ww3_cgi/dynamic/ww3.w.npac.sig_wav_ht.000.gif
>>>>
>>>>           ...which was generated using GrADS by FNMOC.
>>>>
>>>>           Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated,
>>>>           and thank you for your time.
>>>>
>>>>           --
>>>>           Nathan Cool
>>>>           nathan at nathancool.com <mailto:nathan at nathancool.com>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>       --
>>>>       Sushant Puranik
>>>>       Junior Research Fellow
>>>>       Dept. of Atmospheric & Space Sciences,
>>>>       University of Pune,
>>>>       Pune-07,
>>>>       India.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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