correspondence The Summary of Synoptic Meteorological Observations (SSMO) series

James W. Ownbey, Naval Weather Service Detach-ment, Federal Building, Asheville, N.C. 28801

1. Introduction

The Summary of Synoptic Meteorological Observations (SSMO) series of coastal marine summaries is managed and produced by the Naval Weather Service Detachment (NWSD), Federal Building, Asheville, N.C. The work is performed by the National Climatic Center (NCC), Federal Building, Asheville, N.C., on the basis of effective costs.

2. About the series

Each SSMO is prepared for a specific ocean or coastal area utilizing all available ship observations from Tape Data Family-11 (a surface marine data file containing parameters reported by ships at sea). These data are presented in 21 different tables including weather occurrence, wind direction and speed, cloud amount, ceiling, height, visibility, precipi-tation, dry-bulb, relative humidity, air-sea temperature differ-ence, sea height and period, sea surface temperature, and sea-level pressure. The development of this data file was primarily funded by the Naval Weather Service Command.

The publication of the SSMO series began in 1970. Since that time, 82 volumes containing nearly 400 different marine areas have been published (Fig. 1). The NWSD Asheville SSMO program has been modified slightly as experience has

identified the need. There will be some differences noted in the format of the earlier volumes reflecting these changes.

3. Availability

All U.S. Naval Weather Service Command SSMOs produced for publication i are included in the Department of De-fense scientific data bank and identified by an AD number. Copies of particular volumes of published SSMOs are avail-able from the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), Springfield, Va. 22151. Costs vary depending on the number of pages in a volume.

There are additional special unpublished SSMOs on file with NCC. If a SSMO summary is not available for a specific area of interest, the NWSD Asheville SSMO program is available to any user through the NCC on the basis of effective costs. Inquiries should be addressed to the Director, National Climatic Center.

4. References

Additional information concerning the use of TDF-11 data is available from the following sources:

Meserve, J . M., 1974: U.S. Navy Marine Climatic Atlas of the

i Editor's Note: The SSMO publication on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts announced in the October BULLETIN (see BULLETIN, 56, p. 1110) is actually entitled U.S. Naval Weather Service Command, Summary of Synoptic Meteorological Ob-servations, North American Coastal Marine Areas—Revised, Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.

FIG. 1. A graphic presentation of the areal coverage of the SSMO series.

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224 Vol. 57, No. 2, February 1976

World, Volume I, Revised, North Atlantic Ocean. Naval Weather Service Command, Washington, D.C., 385 pp. (available from GPO).

National Climatic Center, 1968: Tape data family-11 refer-ence manual. Asheville, N.C.

Ownbey, J . W., 1975: A synoptic comparison of wind and

wave reports from ocean weather station (OWS) hotel and ships-in-passage. M.S. Thesis, Marine Sciences Curriculum, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, 96 pp.

Quayle, R. G., 1974: A climatic comparison of ocean weather station and transient ship records. Mariners Weather Log, 18, 307-311.

How to write a meteorological abstract

Robert Garian, 1336 N. Ode, Apt. 17, Arlington, Va. 22209

Abstract

This article was written with two goals in mind. One of these was to present a simple procedure for writing abstracts, and the other was to make meteorologists more aware of the importance of proper abstracts. Abstracts are important because they crystallize the results of research in a form that is quickly read and evaluated for its interest to the reader. A practical procedure for writing an abstract is to identify your prospective reader and then state the purpose, methods, and results; evaluate the quality of the results; emphasize those areas that generated the most ideas; modify the abstract to its anticipated use; review the abstract after giving it a chance to fade from your memory; and as a final check, get a second opinion.

The practice of abstracting has a long history. The world's first abstract periodical, the weekly Journal des Sgavans (Paris, 1665-1792), was first issued by Denis de Sallo (1626-1669) on 5 January 1665 (Collison, 1971). And during the reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714), English diplomats are known to have required their undersecretaries to prepare summaries of lengthy documents to simplify their work (Leggett et al., 1970).

The present course of abstracting is toward comprehensive and international efforts to provide current information in abbreviated form. The giants of the abstracting world today are Chemical Abstracts, Biological Abstracts, Bulletin Sig-naletique, Excerpta Medica, and the Soviet Referativny Zhur-nal; all were founded in this century (Collison, 1971). Mete-orological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts was founded in 1950, when it was issued as Meteorological Abstracts and Bibliography (1950-1959) by the American Meteorological Society.

For almost 300 years the art of abstracting has been almost exclusively devoted to the sciences and technology. Only relatively recently have the humanities managed to obtain the financial support necessary for abstracting services and publication (Collison, 1971).

An important part of scientific and technological research is communicating results to other workers for criticism, improvement, and inspiration. An effective scientist is able to communicate his insight with words, symbols, and figures that are concrete, convincing, and easy to understand. The role of the abstract is to add brevity to this list.

An abstract, precis, or summary is a brief text of less than 500 words, either descriptive, critical, or informative, that is consistent in terminology and sequence of ideas with the main text and captures the essential content sufficiently to allow a reader to screen it for relevance from the mass of material that is available.

An abstract is a succinct representation of the main text and is not a substitute for it. Nevertheless, it should be

independent of the main text and complete in its coverage of the content.

Sometimes there is confusion about the purpose of an abstract in relation to the material in the introduction and conclusion of the main text. The introduction is an oppor-tunity to prepare the mind of the reader with the benefit of the author's hindsight, to motivate and encourage him to persevere. The conclusion is a focusing point, gathering together results and reflecting upon their significance for future investigations.

The only overlap between the informative or descriptive abstract and the introduction or conclusion is the implied content of the main text, since the introduction is motiva-tional and the conclusion is indicative. The confusion arises from the failure to distinguish the purposes of the opening and closing elements of the text. For this reason, most ab-stracts are partial extracts of these elements.

An effective abstract may be general or oriented, that is, intended for a general or specialized audience. The first consideration in writing the abstract is to identify your prospective reader. This will determine the extent to which jargon and specialized background assumptions are per-missible. Next, extract or restate the purpose in the main text, keeping it consistent in terminology with the main text. Objectives lead to methods and these should be sorted out and properly emphasized.

The applications of methods lead to results. Ideally, the results you report should be new, reliable, and somewhat re-markable. All the results in the main text should be in-cluded in the abstract.

Results come in many forms—from numerical data to empirical or theoretical formulas and curves. The abstract should not include raw data unless they are so remarkable that they lead to an important conclusion; the same is true for formulas. Figures are generally excluded from the ab-stract unless they are necessary to avoid a great deal of explanation. There are no sacred rules, however, and you should always include anything that you think is important, whatever its form, recognizing that it may have to be "writ-ten around" later.

An increasingly important example of the need to "write around" parts of an abstract is the adaptation of text for computer processing. The machine compatibility require-ment arises because of limitations on the common character sets for computer input and output; this is probably familiar to most meteorologists.

After following these steps, it is usually helpful to lay the abstract aside for a time before proceeding to "tighten it up" by eliminating or blending subordinate ideas. Passing the abstract along to a colleague, editor, or college librarian may reveal weak points in organization, mechanics, or un-tenable assumptions about the reader on your part, or it may confirm that you have a good clear abstract.

Writing an abstract is easy if you follow these simple guide-lines and integrate them with your own personal style.

1) State the purpose, methods, and results.

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2) Evaluate results as reliable or unreliable, remarkable or as expected, conclusive or inconclusive.

3) Emphasize the part of the investigation that generated the most ideas.

4) Modify the abstract to conform with anticipated future use.

5) After a space of time, tighten up the abstract and verify facts such as place names, dates, and equipment nomen-clature.

6) Get a second opinion before publication.

When you consider the fact that most readers will only read your published work if they find your abstract clear, relevant, and timely, then the abstract will become an im-portant part of your writing and1 not just an afterthought

(cf., Landsberg, 1967). Also, if you don't write the abstract yourself, you may be introducing an intolerable timelag between publication and incorporation in some computerized abstract service or journal of abstracts.

References

Collison, R., ed., 1971: The Annals of Abstracting 1665-1970. Los Angeles, The School of Library Service and the Uni-versity Library, University of California, pp. 1, iv, v.

Landsberg, H. E., 1967: Behold the abstract. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 48, 134-135.

Leggett, G. H., C. D. Mead, and W. Charvat, 1970: Prentice-Hall Handbook for Writers. 5th ed. Englewood-Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, p. 444.

Cooperative U.S.-U.S.S.R. balloon flights

J . M. Rosen, N. T . Kjome, and D. J . Hofmann, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo. 82071

As a means of implementing the bilateral agreement between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. on cooperation in the field of en-vironmental protection, several working groups consisting of specialists from both countries were established. This note is a brief report concerning a cooperative field research venture conducted during July and August 1975 under work-ing group VIII, a committee dealing with the influence of environmental changes on the climate. (See cover photo.)

The site of the field work was the Soviet balloon base near Rylsk (pop. 20000) about 500 km south of Moscow. The U.S. was represented by J . Rosen and N. Kjome from the University of Wyoming (UW) and the U.S.S.R. by Prof. K. Kondratyev and V. Ivanov from the Main Geophysical Ob-servatory (MGO), L. Ivlev and O. Barteneva from Leningrad State University (LSU), and V. Shlyakhov, N. Zaitseva, and A. K. Kuzenkov from the Central Aerological Observatory (CAO).

The measurements themselves focused on the influence of aerosols on radiation in both the troposphere and strato-sphere. One of the major experiments involved balloon flights carrying both Soviet and American equipment: a dust-

sonde from UW and a particle impactor as well as an aero-sol filter sampler supplied by the LSU group.

Separate radiometersondes were conducted the night pre-ceding the primary flights by scientists from CAO to mea-sure the upward and downward longwave radiation fluxes as a function of altitude. The primary balloon flights were also accompanied by airborne tropospheric measurements employing the LSU flying laboratory. This aircraft is in-strumented with an impactor sampler, air filters, equipment to measure spectral hemispherical radiation fluxes in the wavelength range 0.4-1 JJLm, and instruments to determine the integrated hemispherical radiation fluxes in the range of 0.3-3 /Am. In addition, ground-based studies involving mea-surements of atmospheric spectral transparency, direct and indirect solar radiation, and laser backscattering were car-ried out by CAO and LSU. These ground observatories were also accompanied by aerosol sampling at or near the surface.

The results of the field measurements are now being used to develop a detailed understanding of the influence of aerosols and water vapor on radiation during the dates of the experiment. In addition, the cooperative balloon soundings provide an opportunity for a direct comparison of U.S. and U.S.S.R. techniques in the measurement of stratospheric aerosols. A partial data exchange took place at the con-clusion of the field trip and it was agreed that a full ex-change of data will take place 5 months afterward. A small symposium to discuss the results was proposed, to be con-ducted in Leningrad during the spring of 1976.

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