European Space Agency (ESA) - Measurement of H2O Absorption Cross-Sections

General Info

Title:	European Space Agency (ESA) - Measurement of H2O Absorption Cross-Sections
Type:	Data Entity
Sub-Type:	Measurement
Abbreviation:	ESA Water Vapour
Publication State:	published
The publication state of this metadata: 'old' - for redundant records; 'working' - for new/in progress records; 'published' - for records approaching maturity, which may still change, but should be available via the discovery services; and 'Published' for mature records that are unlikely to change and should be available via the discovery services.

URI:	http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/view/badc.nerc.ac.uk__ATOM__dataent_ESA-WV

Summary
A brief description of the data.

This data set is the main result of an ESA-funded study entitled 'Measurement of H2O Absorption Cross-Sections for the Exploitation of GOME'. The GOME instruments are downward-viewing satellite-borne spectrometers. Vertical profiles of atmospheric chemical species (in particular ozone) can be determined from the observations. Water vapour is of particular significance because it dominates the energy balance of the atmosphere. Also the spectrum of water vapour must be adequately understood and accounted for when deriving the concentration or distribution of trace atmospheric species. This dataset is public.

Content
The actual data being described by this document. NB, in the case of data granules, this content may just be a reference to an ingested CSML or CDML file.

Introduction

The data contained in ESA-WV (/data/esa-wv/) directory is the main result of an ESA funded study entitled "Measurement of H₂O Absorption Cross-Sections for the Exploitation of GOME Data" (ESTEC Contract No. 13312/9/NL/SF). The GOME and SCIAMACHY instruments are downward-viewing satellite-borne spectrometers that observe back-scattered solar radiation from the Earth's atmosphere. Global data on the distributions and vertical profiles of a large number of chemical species present in the atmosphere can be determined from the observations. Ozone distributions are a key measurement, but many other atmospheric gases and vapours involved in ozone chemistry and global climate change are also measured. Water vapour is of particular significance because it dominates the energy balance of the atmosphere. Also the spectrum of water vapour must be adequately understood and accounted for when deriving the concentration or distribution of trace atmospheric species.

The study was carried out by a consortium involving the following three UK research groups, with Serco Europe Ltd providing project management:

The Molecular Spectroscopy Facility (MSF) at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), which has the necessary experimental facilities and expertise for measuring quantitative high-resolution spectra.
The Spectroscopy Group at Imperial College (IC), with expertise in the analysis of high-resolution molecular spectra.
The Molecular Theory Group at University College London (UCL), the leading group on the theory of the water molecule.

The study, undertaken between April 1999 and August 2000, has significantly improved knowledge of the absorption cross-sections and line parameters for water vapour in the near-infrared and visible spectral regions through a powerful combination of laboratory measurements, spectral analysis, and theoretical calculations.

Data Access

The European Space Agency has authorised distribution of the ESA-WV data to all users without restrictions. The files can be downloaded via the WWW or FTP from the BADC directory /badc/esa-wv/data. Please acknowledge the source of the data in any publication.

Data availability and file format

The format of the ESA-WV data is a variant of HITRAN ASCII (text) type. A readme file outlines the format of the data.

Documentation and Links to further information and references

An executive summary describes the study and resulting databases, with references to more detailed publications.

The three UK research groups involved are:

The Molecular Spectroscopy Facility (MSF) at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
The Spectroscopy Group at Imperial College.
The Molecular Theory Group at University College London.

More details about HITRAN and the HITRAN data format are on the HITRAN web site.

Citation

Date of citation

Who to contact

If you have any queries about these pages or difficulties accessing ESA-WV data at the BADC then you should contact BADC Support.

Other queries concerning the ESA-WV project should be directed to Dr Joerg Callies or Dr R. Learner, the ESA-WV scientific manager.

Lineage
Summary of the origins of the dataset, e.g.: "Dataset produced from NASA MODIS instrument on Terra and collected at the University of York's groundstation 1999-2003 and a copy provided to NEODC in June 2007".

Data acquired from MSF.

Quality Statement
Description of the relative quality of the dataset.

Research data

Author
The principal author of the actual underlying data. Only one author can be specified per atom; if there are multiple authors, these should be specified as 'contributors'. NB, an atom MUST have an author specified.

Name	email
Molecular Spectroscopy Facility (Science and Technology Facilities Council)	ralmsf@stfc.ac.uk

Contributors
Any other authors of the actual underlying data. NB, the principal author should be specified in the 'Author' input field. Also, note, three contributors can be added at once; after these are added a further three may be specified - and so on.

Name	email
European Space Agency (ESA)

Online References
Online references with a specific relationship to the data being described here. NB, if links are supplied they must be valid and include the transport protocol - e.g. 'http://blah.co.uk'. Also, note, three online references can be added at once; after these are added a further three may be specified - and so on.

Relation	Title
Download	ESA Water Vapour Data Directory
Logo	ESA Logo
Documentation	HITRAN website

Parent Data Entity
Define the parent of this record. There should probably only be one parent, but this is not enforced.

No data specified at present

Sub Data Entities
Lists all entities which have the current entity as their parent.

None

Associated Deployments

Parameters - summary

WATERVAPOR	ATMOSPHERICWATERVAPOR	ATMOSPHERE	EARTH SCIENCE
NULL

Parameters - details
Parameters to describe the data - with vocab URL and term IDs for further classification. Note, three parameters can be added at once; after these are added a further three may be specified - and so on.

Label	Vocab Term URL	Vocab Term ID
WATERVAPOR	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
ATMOSPHERICWATERVAPOR	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P141	NULL
ATMOSPHERE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P131	NULL
EARTH SCIENCE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P111	GCAT0001
NULL	general_units	0

Data Coverage
Summary of the temporal and spatial data coverage for the data.

Spatial coverage
Max Y: 0
Min X: 0	Max X 0
Min Y 0

Temporal coverage
Start Date:	1999-04-01
End Date:	2000-08-31

Spatial resolution

No spatial resoultion information available.

Vertical extent

No vertical extent information available.

Responsible Parties
Parties responsible for the metadata - e.g. data curator. Responsible parties can have a role specified to make their function clearer. Multiple responsible parties can be specified.

Role	Name	URI
Data Curator	badc.nerc.ac.uk	http://badc.nerc.ac.uk

Other Info
Other miscellaneous information. Note, update frequency relates to the update frequency of the underlying data, not the metadata.

Dataset language

English

Update frequency

notPlanned

Links and Services
	Downloadable XML version of this record

Not all information in this record may be rendered in this view. Please see the XML version for complete content

WARNING: You currently have javascript disabled. For these pages to work correctly, please enable javascript.