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).

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

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

QUEST projects both used and produced an immense variety of global data sets that needed to be shared efficiently between the project teams. These global synthesis data sets are also a key part of QUEST's legacy, providing a powerful way of communicating the results of QUEST among and beyond the UK Earth System research community. This dataset contains decadal surface meteorology climatologies from CRU TS3.0 data 1901- 2000. Data includes parameters such as temperature, water vapour and precipitation.

The Meteorological Research Flight (MRF) was a Met Office facility, which flew a well-instrumented C-130 Hercules aircraft for atmospheric research purposes. This dataset contains airborne atmospheric and chemistry measurements taken on board the Met Office C-130 Hercules aircraft flight A308 for research purposes.

Vertical profiles of horizontal and vertical wind components as well as signal-to-noise (SNR) and spectal width measurements were collected at the NERC Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere radar facility site, Capel Dewi, near Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales, between 28th March and 16th May 2007 as part of ongoing long term observations made by the NERC National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS). These data were collected by the NCAS Atmospheric Measreument Facility's (AMF) 1290 MHz Mobile Wind Profiler, owned and operated by the University of Manchester and previously known as the aber-radar-1290mhz at the time of these observations. The data are available at 15 minute intervals as netCDF files to all registered BADC users under the Open Government License. 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

This CD-ROM set contains the Volume 3 Near-surface meteorological analyses data collection. The data covers a 24 month period, 1987-1988, and all but one are mapped to a common spatial resolution and grid (1 degree x 1 degree). Temporal resolution for most datasets is monthly; however, a few are at a finer resolution (e.g., 6-hourly). This dataset contains data covering Near-surface meteorological analyses and hybrid productsublic.

The University of Leeds Sodar 2 dataset contains measurements of the scattering of sound waves by atmospheric turbulence at Alice Holt, Hampshire over the period from the 22nd of June 2005 to the 22nd of August 2005. The dataset contains measurements of wind speed at various heights above the ground, and the thermodynamic structure of the lower layer of the atmosphere.

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 backscatter, air temperature and air pressure measurements. Temperature and pressure reference to the NIMES radiosonde.

Data from observations made at the Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory (CVAO) which exists to advance understanding of climatically significant interactions between the atmosphere and ocean and to provide a regional focal point and long-term data. The observatory is based on Calhau Island of São Vicente, Cape Verde at 16.848N, 24.871W, in the tropical Eastern North Atlantic Ocean, a region which is data poor but plays a key role in atmosphere-ocean interactions of climate-related and biogeochemical parameters including greenhouse gases. It is an open-ocean site that is representative of a region likely to be sensitive to future climate change, and is minimally influenced by local effects and intermittent continental pollution. The dataset contains Total Gaseous Mercury (TGM) measurements made from 7.5m using a Tekran CVAFS Mercury Analyser.