Data from the Instituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia INGV-SXG simulations

SPECS will undertake research and dissemination activities to deliver a new generation of European climate forecast systems, with improved forecast quality and efficient regionalisation tools to produce reliable, local climate information over land at seasonal-to-decadal time scales, and provide an enhanced communication protocol and services to satisfy the climate information needs of a wide range of public and private stakeholders. A core set of common experiments has been defined, to which most forecast systems will contribute. Another set of coordinated experiments, tier 1, includes the experiments that one or more forecast systems are planning to run. A standard seasonal experimental set up will consist of ten-member ensembles, with two start dates per year (first of May and November) over the 1981-2012 period and seven-month forecast length. The standard decadal experimental set up consists in five-member ensembles, starting on the first of November (or some time close to that date) of the years 1960, 1963, 1965, 1968, 1970, 1973, 1975, 1978, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2013, with a five-year forecast length. A description of the main experiments, with the minimum contribution in terms of start dates, forecast length and ensemble size follows: 1 - Assessment of the impact of soil-moisture initial conditions (seasonal): contributing EC-Earth, IFS/NEMO (ECMWF), CNRM-CM5 (MeteoF), UM, MPI-ESM (MPG); 2 - Assessment of the impact of sea-ice initialization (interannual); contributing EC-Earth (IC3), IPSL-CM5, CNRM-CM5 (MeteoF), UM, MPI-ESM (MPG) 3 - Assessment of impact of increased horizontal resolution (seasonal and decadal); contributing CNRM-CM5 (CERFACS, decadal; MeteoF, seasonal), EC-Earth (IC3, seasonal; KNMI and SMHI, decadal), MPI-ESM (MPG, seasonal and decadal), IPSL-CM5 (decadal), UM (seasonal and decadal); 4 - Assessment of impact of an improved stratosphere (seasonal and decadal) including interannually-varying ozone; contributing EC-Earth (KNMI seasonal with ozone; SMHI decadal), IFS/NEMO (ECMWF, seasonal), CNRM-CM5 (MeteoF, seasonal), UM (seasonal, decadal); 5 - Assessment of impact of additional start dates (decadal); contributing EC-Earth (KNMI, SMHI), MPI-ESM (MPG), IPSL-CM5. SPECS research has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under SPECS project (grant agreement n° 308378).

Tropospheric ORganic CHemistry Experiment (TORCH) was a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Polluted Troposphere Research Programme project (Round 1 - NER/T/S/2002/00145. Duration 2002 - 2005) led by A. Lewis, University of York. TORCH 1 took place in July and August 2003 at Writtle College, near Chelmsford, Essex. This dataset contains ECMWF trajectories

Data were collected by the 1290 mhz wind profiler, previously known as the Aberystwyth radar, at Achern, Germany, in support of the Convective and Orographically-induced Precipitation Study (COPS) Project from the 13th of June 2007 to the 17th of August 2007. The dataset contains measurements of wind speed, wind direction, signal to noise ratio and spectral width. Data are available in netCDF. The dataset contains the following measurements: Eastward wind velocity component Northward wind velocity component Upward air velocity Direction the wind is from Signal to noise ratio Altitude of instrument above the ground Longitude of instrument Latitude of instrument Spectral width

The ozone satellite data describe ozone measurements deduced from satellite data. The dataset contains atmospheric profiles of ozone concentrations. The data are measured by satellites and around 2700 observations are made per day.

Dual-polar products from the Met Office's Hameldon Hill C-band rain radar, Lancashire, England. Data include augmented ldr and zdr scan data (both long and short pulse). The radar is a C-band (5.3 cm wavelength) radar and data are received by the Nimrod system at 5 minute intervals.

The UK soil temperature data describes daily and hourly values of soil temperatures at depths of 5, 10, 20, 30, 50, and 100 centimetres. The measurements are recorded by observation stations across the UK and transmitted within NCM or DLY3208 messages. The data spans from 1900 to present.

The ship based SYNOP messages measurements describe hourly observations from sea based stations (ships, rigs, platforms and moored buoys) distributed globally. The observations cumulate in around 10,000 reports a day, giving measurements of parameters such as wind speed and direction, maximum and minimum air temperature, sunshine duration, rainfall accumulation, and cloud type. The data are collected by observation stations worldwide and transmitted within the ship SYNOP message.

The European Arctic Stratospheric Ozone Experiment is a European Commission (EC) measurement campaign undertaken in the Northern Hemisphere winter of 1991-92 to study ozone chemistry and dynamics. This dataset contains vertical column measurements of NO2 and O3.

Meteosat-7 and its predecessors were the first generation of earth observation dedicated geostationary satellites located at 36000 km above the intersection of the Equator and the Greenwich Meridian. Although superseded by MSG-1 (renamed Meteosat-8) in 2005, Meteosat-7 remained as back-up at 0o longitude until 14th June 2006. Meteosat-7 will be moved to 63oE longitude to continue coverage of the Indian Ocean and take over from Meteosat-5. Meteosat-7 was launched by the European Space Agency and operated by Eumetsat. This dataset contains thermal infra-red images from Meteosat Geostationary Satellites First Generation over Europe and North Atlantic.