Australian Baseline Sea Level Monitoring Project
File information and Instructions

Data Formats File Names Data Units Viewing Data Plotting Data Data Errors

The format and naming of the files is as follows:-

DATA FORMAT
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Hourly Data are presented in Comma Separated Variable (.csv) format which is compatable with use in a spreadsheet such as MS Excel. These files can also be plotted with MS Excel. To save a file in text format, you will need to right-click on the file link to use "Save Target As ..." in the popup menu.

FILE NAMES
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Hourly data files have the following names: nnnnnnnn_yyyy.csv, where nnnnnnnn is the ID Code as given in the following table. For metadata, please click on the port name in the table below.

ID CODE STATE TOWN / DISTRICT AHD SSBM LATITUDE LONGITUDE
IDO71001 Queensland Townsville - Cape Ferguson 1.590 6.989 19° 16' 38.4" S 147° 03' 30.4" E
IDO71002 Queensland Rockhampton - Rosslyn Bay 2.360 8.167 23° 09' 39.7" S 150° 47' 24.6" E
IDO71003 New South Wales Port Kembla 0.872 5.045 34° 28' 25.5" S 150° 54' 42.7" E
IDO71004 Victoria Stony Point 1.690 5.042 38° 22' 19.7" S 145° 13' 28.9" E
IDO71006 Victoria Lorne 1.423 4.461 38° 32' 49.9" S 143° 59' 19.8" E
IDO71005 Tasmania Burnie 1.938 6.535 41° 03'   0.3" S 145° 54' 54.0" E
IDO71007 Tasmania Triabunna - Spring Bay 1.153 4.653 42° 32' 45.1" S 147° 55' 57.8" E
IDO71008 Victoria Portland 0.507 3.425 38° 20' 36.4" S 141° 36' 47.4" E
IDO71009 South Australia Adelaide - Port Stanvac 1.280 7.5781 35° 06' 31.0" S 138° 28'   1.3" E
IDO71010 South Australia Thevenard 0.993 5.4922 32° 08' 56.2" S 133° 38' 28.8" E
IDO71011 Western Australia Esperance 0.707 4.782 33° 52' 15.2" S 121° 53' 43.3" E
IDO71012 Western Australia Perth - Hillarys 0.763 4.895 31° 49' 32.0" S 115° 44' 18.9" E
IDO71013 Western Australia Broome 5.322 14.248 18° 00'   3.0" S 122° 13'   7.1" E
IDO71014 Northern Territory Darwin 4.105 10.479 12° 28' 18.4" S 130° 50' 45.1" E
IDO71015 Northern Territory Milner Bay - Groote Eylandt n/a 6.8639 13° 51' 36.2" S 136° 24' 56.1" E
IDO71016 Indian Ocean Cocos (Keeling) Islands n/a 3.5536 12° 07'   0.1" S 096° 53' 39.9" E
Note: Datum at Broome and Darwin changed to LAT in September 2010
  Datum at Stony Point changed to LAT in September 2016


DATA UNITS
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Dates and times are given in Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). 00:00 is midnight, 06:00 is 6am, 12:00 is noon and 18:00 is 6pm.

Sea Level Observed sea levels are in metres above Tide Gauge Zero (e.g. 1.205 metres)
AHD Australian Height Datum in metres above tide gauge zero. Subtract this value from the observed sea level to reduce the reading to an AHD height. Please note that at some sites, tide gauge zero is not the same as Chart (prediction) Datum
SSBM Height of Seaframe Sensor Bench Mark above Tide Gauge Zero. Geoscience Australia has Survey Information for the benchmarks near the tide gauges. SSBM is NOT changed to agree with this survey information, unless there is a known shift in SSBM
Water Temperature Water Temperatures are in degrees Celsius (e.g. 20.5 deg C)
Air Temperature Air Temperatures are in degrees Celsius (e.g. 20.5 deg C)
Barometric Pressure Barometric Pressures are in hPa (mb) (e.g.. 1010.1 hPa)
Residuals Residual sea levels are in metres (e.g. -0.014m indicates that the observed sea level is 0.014m below predicted sea level)
Adjusted Residuals Sea level anomalies are in metres (e.g. -0.077m indicates that the observed sea level is 0.077m below predicted sea level, adjusted for the static barometric pressure effect)
Wind Direction Wind Directions in Degrees True (e.g. 205 degrees True). The wind direction is the average of the last six, one-minute wind direction measurements taken in the previous hour.
Wind Gust Wind Gusts are in m/sec (e.g. 8.5 m/sec). The wind gust is the maximum of the sixty, one-minute wind gust measurements taken in the previous hour.
Wind Speed Wind Speeds are in m/sec (e.g. 6.5 m/sec). The wind speed is the average of the last six, one-minute wind speed measurements taken in the previous hour.

Missing or erroneous data points are set to a value of -9999 (you need to remove these to plot the data).
 
How to view the Hourly data.
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  1. The hourly data is in a format that can be easily viewed using spreadsheet software such as MS Excel.

  2. Firstly click (or double click) on the link in the table of hourly data.

  3. If you have MS Office 2000 or later the Comma Separated Variable (.csv) file will be opened in your browser window.

  4. Older versions of MS Office may ask you if you want to open the file or to save it to your computer.

  • It is easier to save the file to your computer in a place that you are familiar with (eg desktop or My Documents) and then open the file from there. This also means that you can save any changes that you make to the file.

  • If you choose to open the file from the table, it will open in your browser window. You then need to click on view in the menu bar at the top then select "toolbars" and "standard". This should put all the icons in the toolbar for plotting etc.

  • For MS Office 2000+ you can also save the file to your computer or use the above method to present the "standard Toolbar" in the browser. MS Office 2000+ also has a tools icon, which when selected will place all the "standard Toolbar" icons on the top toolbar.

  1. The hourly data files consist of eleven columns of data and information. The first column is the date and time stamp in the format of dd/mm/yyyy mm:ss.

  2. The following nine columns are hourly data of the following parameters: HL=Hourly Sea Level, WT=Water Temperature, AT=Air Temperature, BP=Barometric Pressure, HR=Hourly Sea Level Residuals, HA=Hourly Sea Level Anomilies, WG=Wind Gust, WD=Wind Direction and WS=Wind Speed.

  3. The first row of the 10th and 11th columns are the site name(s).

  4. When you have this data in a spreadsheet, you can then proceed with plotting any of the nine types of data in the hourly files.
How to Graph (plot) Hourly data
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  1. Firstly select the date and time column by clicking on the top cell (the "A" column cell). This should highlight the first column. This column becomes the X axis data for a time series chart.
  2. Either click on the chart wizard icon in the toolbar (picture of a bar graph) or select "chart" in the "insert" drop down menu.
  3. In the Chart Type window select XY(scatter).
  4. Select the Sub-Type of graph and click on next.
  5. You are then presented with a window with 2 tab like menu options (1) series and (2) data range. click on the series tab.
  6. In this window you must select the positions (in the spreadsheet) of the X and Y data and of the site name for the Chart.
  7. To select the X (date and time) data click the add button then the red arrow on the right side of the X values window, then click on the "A" cell at the top of the first column. You should then click on the red arrow on the right side of the small window. This should then list the reference for the X data in the X values window.
  8. Then follow the previous step to select the Y values and Name. So to chart the Barometric Pressure data select the "E" column (BP) for the Y values and the K1 cell for the name. Click on next.
  9. Then you should have a window with a small image of the graph and windows with the chart title and X and Y axis values. The Site name should be in the chart title window and the axis titles blank. Here you should enter the axis titles and units, eg. Time(Hours) for the X axis and Barometric Pressure(hPa) for the Y axis. Then select "next" and finish in the next window. You should then have a plot of Barometric Pressure against time from the site and year that you first selected.
  10. Note that you may need to hide to top row (the first row with the column headings eg Date and time HL etc.) to get MS Excel to show the date and time in the X axis. To do this select the first row click on "format", select "rows" then "hide"
Errors in the data
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The data on this disk has an error value asigned to values that are either missing or erroneous.

  1. This value is -9999 and should be removed before generating a chart.
  2. To do this, once you have opened the .csv file select the whole of the spreadsheet by clicking on the top left cell. You may also just select the column of data that you want to chart.
  3. You must then find and replace all error values (-9999), to do this click on edit in the toolbar and select replace. In the "find what" box type "-9999" and leave the "replace with" box blank. Click on "replace all" to replace all error values with a blank cell or on "replace" to replace one cell at a time.

*Note that if you have opened the file from the table and not saved it to your computer then you will be prompted to save the changes. You will need to specify where to save the file. If you wish to save formating changes and Charts, you will need to specify "Microsoft Excel Workbook (*.xls) in the "Save as type:" box.

Return to the Hourly Data Table or the Monthly Statistics Table