Database interfaces

The MySQL database server on the Division of Atmospheric Sciences is wisp.atm.helsinki.fi. It is handling three databases having data from SMEAR stations: hyde, kumpula and varrio. To access the databases and the tables inside the database you need a username and password smear_usr / T4v4EW23. With this username you can download data from all three databases.

You can also download data from smartSearch

You can download data from several programs like Matlab, Excel, Mathematica, Igor .. with the ODBC interface.

Install Windows MySQL ODBC connector Install file. Latest version from here
Configure the interface

Control panel - Administratice tools - Data Sources (ODBC) - System DSN (or User DSN) - Add
Select the MySQL ODBC driver
Write data source name: hyde
Write TCP/IP server: wisp.atm.helsinki.fi
User and password from above
Select the database: hyde
Test

You can do the same for all three databases. Just change the data source name and database (hyde, varrio or kumpula). In the programs you refer to the database with the data source name. I have used the database names as data source names.

You can also use the platform independent JDBC-interface JAR-file. Latest version from here. Here are the install instructions to Matlab.

Copy the JAR-file somewhere in your computer
Edit the file classpath.txt in %matlabroot%\toolbox\local
Add a line like C:\apps\mysql_java\mysql-connector-java-5.1.13-bin.jar to the file, link to the JAR-file on your computer

For Matlab you can also use custom made interface. You can compile it to both Windows and Linux. Here is the Windows version compiled with Matlab2010b and Microsoft VisualC 2010 Express.

Copy libmysql.dll to %matlabroot%\bin\win32
Copy rest of the files somewhere in Matlab path

Here is a Matlab example demonstrating how to download temperature, rh and pressure from hyde database table meta.

From Excel you can use Data- Get data from external data - From other sources - From Microsoft Query

One advanced tool for accessing the database is MySQL Workbench

You need to use SQL-command select * from table -command a lot. You can seek help from the MySQL documentation:

To find out what the databases and tables contain you can use SQL-commands

show tables from hyde (Hyytiöälä database)
describe meta (Met, gases radiation ...)

To find out what is in the columns of the tables you better check the Wiki

Accessing SMEAR databases