This software is designed to facilitate the management of scientific data from multiple sources. The integration of observations from various observational systems such as weather stations, satellites and radars is an area which is receiving increased attention. An increasing amount of work is also being carried out on integrating such observations with information from numerical models, and in assimilating the observations into the models. Unfortunately, most types of data are stored in different file formats and little effort has been made to facilitate the exchange of data between disciplines such as meteorology, hydrology and oceanography. Since SMHI is the national agency responsible for operational activities in all three of these disciplines, it would obviously be beneficial to these operations if a rationalization of data management procedures can be realized. This is the reason why the HL-HDF software has been developed.
Another important reason why HL-HDF has been developed is that it facilitates the management of multi-source data for pure research and development activities. This is due to the software's flexibility which provides a platform for managing virtually any variable and combination of variables imaginable.
Due to HDF5's platform independent nature, its use can even be considered for exchange between organizations, either domestically or internationally. Its built-in compression is efficient which increases the potential amount of data available in archives and helps make them more useful.
Why ``release 717''? The European Co-Operation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST) has recently launched a new Concerted Research Action number 717 called ``Use of Radar Observations in Hydrological and NWP Models''. Since COST 717 deals with integrating data from multiple sources in ways which HL-HDF is designed to facilitate, SMHI has committed HL-HDF as a contribution to this Action. Hence the release version 717...