The intention of this document is to inform you of the structure and format of the directories and files contained within this preliminary release, and some general information that may be useful for reading and interpreting the accompanying data files. The exchange data files are for data collected onboard the NASA ER-2 during the 1987 Stratosphere-Troposphere Exchange Project (STEP) based in Darwin Australia. All files within this release are standard ASCII files with variable length records.

• The DOCUMENT directory contains several files documenting the contents of this release.
• FORMAT.DOC gives the format specifications which all experimenters were encouraged to use when writing files for data exchange. The standard format includes header information which describes the data, and the data in the form of time series.
• SOFTWARE.DOC contains documentation on FORTRAN subroutines included in the SOFTWARE directory which can be used to read those files which are in the standard format.
• CATALOG.DOC contains a list of the principal investigators, their instruments, and the available data.
• FLTNOTES.DOC contains Edwin Danielsen's notes which briefly describe the scientific objectives and meteorological context of each of the ER-2 flights out of Darwin.

• The SOFTWARE directory contains several FORTRAN subroutines which can be used to read those data files which are in the standard format described in FORMAT.DOC.
• The data directories are organized by flight number (FLIGHT01, FLIGHT02, FLIGHT03, etc.) and contain all available exchange data files for a particular flight.

2. Reference

• The Stratosphere-Troposphere Exchange Project, An Overview and Handbook, 1986. STEP Office, NASA Ames Research Center MS 245-5, Moffett Field, CA 94035.

At the same time that the 1987 STEP was in progress there were two other major atmospheric experiments being conducted in northern Australia. These were the Australian Monsoon Experiment (AMEX) and the Equatorial Mesoscale Experiment (EMEX). Both of these experiments utilized a variety of observation platforms including satellites, aircraft, radar, and radiosondes.

AMEX Newsletter #6 reviews the status of AMEX data and can be obtained from:

David Jasper
Scientific and Technical Services Branch
Bureau of Meteorology
P.O. Box 1289K
Melbourne Vic.
Australia 3001

An EMEX Data Report may be obtained from:

NOAA/AOML/Hurricane Research Division
Attn: C. Arnhols
4301 Rickenbacker Causeway
Miami, Florida 33149
USA

This documentation and the accompanying data files were compiled by:

Steve Hipskind
NASA Ames Research Center
M/S 245-5
Moffett Field, CA 94035
USA

We have left the quality control of the data to the principal investigators and have only checked the data files for readability. Therefore, if problems with the data are encountered please inform either us or the appropriate principal investigator.