pybufr_ecmwf

Introduction

BUFR is the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standard file format for the exchange of weather observations. Pybufr_ecmwf is a python module for reading and of writing BUFR files and for composing BUFR templates.

The pybufr_ecmwf module provides a python interface to the ECMWF bufrdc library and allows to read and write files in BUFR format. On top of the functionality provided by the bufrdc fortran library, this python module also adds the possibility to create BUFR templates and write the results as BUFR tables that can be used by the ECMWF BUFRDC library

The API consists of several layers:

• the raw/bare fortran/c API that connects python to the fortran library (pybufr_ecmwf.ecmwfbufr)

• an intermediate python API around this raw layer (pybufr_ecmwf.bufr_interface_ecmwf)

• a high level API which allows a pythonic object oriented usage. (pybufr_ecmwf.bufr) (for now, only for reading of BUFR files, for writing and template creation the intermediate layer is still needed.)

It is recommended to only use the high level API whenever possible, This should be the easiest interface to use. Also, ECMWF is in the middle of a transition to a new library called ecCodes (which is currently in beta stage). The plan is to include an interface to this new library as well in this python module, with identical high level python interface, so you don't need to adapt your scripts. However, to enable this the lower level python routines may change significantly.

Also please note that this new ecCodes library implements its own python API which is significantly different from the interface implemented by the pybufr_ecmwf module. Details can be found on the ECMWF website: https://software.ecmwf.int/wiki/display/ECC/ecCodes+Home

Requirements

• python 3.x

• numpy (and its f2py component) (note that on linux they may be packaged separately, for example Fedora splits them in python3-numpy and python3-numpy-f2py)

• gcc and gfortran

Compatibility

This module should work and has CI tests on travis for:

• linux (any recent version should work)

• Mac OSX + homebrew

If you manage to get it working on other types of systems please tell me.

Installation

Installation details are given in these files:

• for Linux see: docs/INSTALL_LINUX.md
• for MacOSX see: docs/INSTALL_MACOSX.md

Unfortunately Windows is currently not supported. For details why see: docs/NOTES_WINDOWS.md

Documentation

For usage examples for pybufr_ecmwf see the file docs/USAGE.md

For more information on this module please consult the documentation at: ... [to be written]

Some details on how to start testing with the optional ecCodes interface can be found here ... [to be written]

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has a set of webpages describing the meteorological codes: http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/WMOCodes.html

The file format standard is described in the official WMO documentation which can be downloaded from: http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/WMOCodes/Guides/BUFRCREXPreface_en.html A direct link to the file format standard is in pdf format: http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/WMOCodes/Guides/BUFRCREX/Layer3-English-only.pdf

The ECMWF BUFRDC library documentation is available at the ECMWF website at https://software.ecmwf.int/wiki/display/BUFR/BUFRDC+Home A link to the bufr_user_guide.pdf document is available on this page.

The new ecCodes library can be downloaded from the ECMWF website: https://software.ecmwf.int/wiki/display/ECC/ecCodes+Home

Copyright

The python source code for this module is copyright (c) 2009-2022 by Jos de Kloe and placed under the LGPLv3 license. The included unaltered copy of the ECMWF bufrdc library source code is copyright (c) 1981-2016 ECMWF and is Apache v2.0 licensed.

Contact

Questions, issues and requests for new features can be posted on the issues page: https://github.com/jdkloe/pybufr-ecmwf/issues or directly emailed to me at josdekloe@gmail.com

Jos de Kloe, 20-May-2022.