CIMS - Chemical Ionisation Mass Spectrometer

CIMS Participants APPLY for access
(*See below for conditions)

go to DATA ARCHIVE

Introduction

A flying campaign to validate a new instrument to measure nitric acid and ammonia. Overall aim: The installation, testing and demonstration of a Chemical Ionisation Mass Spectrometer on the UK FAAM aircraft that can measure nitric acid and ammonia with sufficient sensitivity to address many atmospherically important questions coupling the oxidation of oxides of nitrogen with the loss to aerosols. These problems dictate regional deposition and transport pathways and are of important regional air quality and climatic importance.

Availability of data

BADC will store data from the FAAM BAe-146 aircraft supplied by the CIMS project team in the BADC FAAM archive, from where they can be viewed and downloaded by authorised users (see below). These data include both core and non-core data (for a definition of core data, see the document on FAAM Instruments).

Access to data

As stated in the CIMS Conditions of Use, access to the BAe-146 data is restricted to CIMS participants :

processed core data is publicly available upon ageement with the FAAM Data Protocol (online application required).
non-core data collected on board the FAAM aircraft will be restricted to CIMS participants for 18 months after measurement, after which the data will be released to the public domain.
Access to the BAe-146 raw-core data is restricted to FAAM staff.

All users are requested to acknowledge the data providers, and NERC and the Met Office in any publication based on CIMS data.

If you are an CIMS participant and wish to access the CIMS data whilst it is restricted, please follow the guidelines below.

register as a BADC user — if you are already a registered BADC user, skip this step; if you have forgotten your BADC user ID and/or password, please contact the BADC helpdesk at badc@rl.ac.uk;
apply for access to the CIMS data — you will be asked to abide by the CIMS Conditions of Use and the FAAM Conditions of Use

Data format, File names and Instructions to data providers

CIMS data are stored in either NetCDF or NASA Ames format. File names follow the BADC file name convention.

Data file submission.
Data providers are kindly requested to follow the BADC file name convention and to format your data in NetCDF, using the CF metadata conventions. NASA Ames formatted files are also accepted.
If you wish to check that files are correctly formatted before uploading them please use the NetCDF format checker or the BADC NASA-Ames format checker.
It is important that the data be well documented. Please follow the BADC guidelines regarding the submission of metadata.

Core data and Met Office-non-core instrument data will be submitted though the usual upload routes.
Other non-core data can be submitted by FTP to ftp.badc.rl.ac.uk directory incoming/cims. You will need your BADC user name and password and have applied and been granted access to CIMS data as directed above.

Documentation

CIMS Conditions of Use
FAAM Conditions of Use applying to processed core flight data

Services

BADC NASA-Ames file checker
BADC NetCDF file checker

Links to further information

FAAM Welcome Page at BADC
The Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) Web site

Citation

FAAM, UK Meteorological Office, Natural Environment Research Council,[Percival, C.]. FAAM - Chemical Ionisation Mass Spectrometer (CIMS), [Internet]. British Atmospheric Data Centre, 2009-, Date of citation. Available from http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/cims/.

Who to contact

The CIMS Principal Investigators are Dr. Carl Percival (University of Manchester).
Any query regarding the data should be sent to the BADC help desk.

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