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Open access Climate data
The European Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) supports society by providing authoritative information about the past, present and future climate in Europe and the rest of the World. It offers free and open access to climate data and tools based on the best available science.
Since its inception in 2017, BIRA-IASB has been deeply involved in a series of projects dealing with the operational provision of long-term satellite and ground-based climate data records (CDRs) of atmospheric composition products that feed the C3S Climate Data Store (CDS). This entails the delivery of satellite ozone, dust aerosol and stratospheric aerosol data as well as a collection of various reference ground-based data records.
Ozone and other greenhouse gases as Essential Climate Variables
Ozone is an important trace gas that plays a key role in atmospheric chemistry and air quality. To date, it is the third largest contributor to the total tropospheric radiative forcing, and is therefore listed as one of the GCOS Essential Climate Variables (ECVs).
Since 2010, BIRA-IASB has been leading European efforts to develop and assess satellite-based ozone CDRs within the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme.
In 2017, the operational production of CCI ozone CDRs was transferred to the newly created C3S, where BIRA-IASB coordinates ozone data delivery while maintaining its scientific leadership in ESA CCI.
Our Institute is also responsible for the provision, after a quality assurance process, of ground-based ECVs data from the NDACC (Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change): ozone, CH4 and CO as greenhouse gases, as well as NO2 and HCHO, two ozone precursors species impacting air quality.
Aerosols are also important climate drivers
BIRA-IASB provides global mineral dust optical depth and mean plume altitude obtained from the IASI instruments, in operation since 2006. Dust aerosols reside mostly below 6 km altitude, originating from bare and dry areas, and impact the climate directly and indirectly through their impact on clouds and rain. They also affect human health and activities such as transport, aviation, telecommunication, solar energy.
In addition to the tropospheric dust, we also provide climatologies of radiative and microphysial parameters for stratospheric aerosols, from the GOMOS satellite experiments, covering the decade from 2002 to 2012. These climatologies cover extremely diverse situations in terms of volcanic activity (the primary source of aerosols in the stratosphere) and aerosol load, which makes them highly valuable for climate analyses.
Rigorous quality assessment assures confidence in the climate data records
Any data provided to the Climate Data Store must be verified carefully by external means of reference, and are associated with a comprehensive set of quality indicators, enabling users to judge the fitness of the data for their specific purpose.
This essential quality assessment and reporting is achieved routinely by confrontation of the produced satellite data records to fiducial reference measurements from ground-based monitoring networks (COCCON, GAW, NDACC, PGN, TCCON), and by cross-validation with other satellites of documented quality.
The reference ground-based data records themselves are quality controlled by comparing them with data from other networks or techniques, and by verifying their long-term homogeneity.
