An international long-term collaboration to study the climatic and environmental feedback mechanisms involved in the African monsoon, and in some of its consequences on society and human health. The programme, which started in 2004, has developed a network of ground-based observation stations over Sub-Saharan West Africa to measure heat flux and, for some stations, CO2 and H2O vapour fluxes. Files also include concomitant meteorological measurements (wind, temperature, pressure, humidity, rainfall) and soil physics parameters (soil temperature and moisture). The UK branch of AMMA makes use of several instruments provided by the UK Universities Facility for Atmospheric Measurement (UFAM) which are centred on the Niamey meso-site. The Facility for Airbourne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) aircraft was used during the July-August 2006 campaign.

The Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay (AMDAR) measurements describe hourly observations from aircraft across the world during all stages of flight. The observations cumulate into 160,000 reports a day, giving measurements of parameters such as aircraft characteristics, wind speed and direction, degree of turbulence, and air temperature. The data are collected by observation stations worldwide and transmitted within the AMDAR message, which prior to March 1992, was known as ASDAR(Aircraft to Satellite Data Relay).