Suggested Flow:

1. Enter data from:

a. keyboard - ENTICE 
b. NODC (SD2) - NODC-ICE
c. NODC CDROM - CD-ICE

Method (a) produces to files (?.DAT and ICES.BLU). The .DAT files
allow you to re-read a station into ENTICE (ie and ENTICE compatible)
file. One file /station is produced, but you should erase these
after you are finished with them. The other file (ICES.BLU) is a
file of all your key-entered data, and is in Blueprint format. At the
start of a session, and if you do not want your new data to be added
to this file, then rename or delete it before starting. ICES.BLU can
be converted to ICES format (ICES.ICE) using BLU-ICES.


2. Validation of structure.

a. FISUM will check that all is OK with the structure of your
ICES file. Appropriate warning messages are issued if appropriate. Also
produced is a file (FISUM.OUT) which produces a listing summarising
the `cruises' by different ships etc. Also note that the range of
record numbers for each cruise is given, which you can use in RECEXT
to extract any particular block of data.

3. Quality Control/data editing

ICESQC will 1st level checking of the data. Details of this
and its interaction with other software is described below:

Quality Control at ICES includes several procedures ranging
from the validation of records to a full scientific evaluation of data.

On receipt of data, and following conversion to the ICES format (which may
also create its own errors, the following routine steps are followed:


i. Validation of consistent record and station structure:

This is undertaken using utility ICESQC, and checks for the following:

a) illegal record types

b) illegal record lengths (must be 80)

c) values >=60 in all minutes fields

d) Ship speed checks - announces negative speed, suspect speeds (>20<40
knots), and gross speed error (>40 knots). This check requires that the
data set be time sorted by ship (using ICESORT). For this consistent
station numbering in a data set is encouraged as a redundant checking
parameter). This procedure often reveals points on land, but is
double-checked using the STAPLOT, which produces a track chart.

e) decreasing depth of observations - often a symptom of the supplier
merging several stations under the one header, common if export from a
data base table.

f) Sounding < deepest observation depth. Assumes units are metres and
decibars respectively.

g) density instability (yet to be implemented). Other checks, such as
unrealistic oxygen saturation are also being considered

ICESQC produces an output file (.err) which is compatible with ICE-EDT.
Thus records failing the tests can be pointed to directly from ICESQC, and
the original data file (which is limited in size only by the available
disk space, can be corrected or flagged as necessary.



ii. Validation of observations:

This is undertaken by utility TSLOOK. 

This produces an x,y, pressure,x and pressure,y plot of any pair of
observation in the ICES format, ie t, S, oxygen, nutrients, H2s, pH,
alkalinity and chlorophyll.  

Stations may be scanned stepwise, or continuously. Inconsistent patterns
and outliers can be pointed to in the x,y portion of the plot, and saved
in a file (also .ERR, and compatible with ICE-EDT). These points can
therefore be corrected or flagged as described above. The whole x,y plot
can be saved to a file for re-viewing at a later stage. This is
particularly useful if several pairs of parameters have to be viewed. The
.err file is also sent to the originator for confirmation of any
corrections made.

The utility also produces a .sus file which contains the values of all
minimum and maximum data values, along with their record numbers. This
file will also contain the record of the entire station that has a suspect
value (if so selected by pointing to the value, and pressing TAB).

ii Changing/editing data

ICE-EDT allows you to correct any field in an ICES record. To use
it you need to know the record number (FISUM & STASUM provides some
of these), or an appropriate .err file.  To call up entries in
the .err file type '?' at the record number prompt.

ICE-EDT operates in random access mode. This means that you can
make changes on ICES data files of any length, and changes are
recorded without the need to re-save the file. Thus there is no
backup automatically generated, so be sure of what you want to do.

Changes to entries in the Master Record are automatically transferred
to corresponding records in the data field, if appropriate.


4 Display

Many of the display routines (eg TSLOOK) are also used for QC purposes.
Additionally STAPLOT may be used to plot a chart of station positions.
Positions are plotted prior to coastlines being drawn. To get a coastline
the appropriate file must be in the current directory, and called up
in the command line. For example if your coastline is in the file
user.sur (note the extension must be .sur, and the file must be
compatible with the SURFER Format (OPCPLOT will generate these
for you)) - type STAPLOT USER will draw the coastline after you press
<space> on completion of the station plotting.

These programs do not produce a graphics output file, but you can of
course import them to a word-processing package using appropriate
screen-capture utilities.

Additional product production is undertaken by import to SURFER. To do
this the following routine is recommended.

 a) extract the appropriate stations by means of ICE-EXT.  (years, positions
sections etc).

b) convert the file to .CSV format using ICE-CSV. This file
can be imported to surfer, but specific plots, eg SST or salinity at
50 meters is best done by passing your .CSV file through CSV-SUR. This
allows for a higher level of extraction.  The resulting file is compatible
with most import functions in almost all commercially available software.
Additional flexibility is offered providing a facility to user-defining
the field separator.


Many of the programs have a number of HELP pages included, which provide
additional information.
 

