African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA)

The AMMA (African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis) programme is 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, that started in 2004, has developed a network of ground-based observation stations over Sub-saharan West Africa, and several intensive measurement campaigns unfolded in the course of 2005 and 2006. In addition to the observations, the programme also includes an important component of modeling and data assimilation, and supports training and education activities.

The UK branch of AMMA, AMMA-UK, receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and makes use of several instruments provided by the UK Universities Facility for Atmospheric Measurement (UFAM). The FAAM aircraft that will be used during the July-August 2006 campaign is run jointly by NERC and by the UK Met Office.

The AMMA archive maintained at the BADC contains data collected by the UK participants to AMMA (AMMA-UK). For information on and access to data collected by other country members, and for satellite data archived in the UK, see the "Links to further information" section below. AMMA-UK data archived at BADC include the following.

• Routine observational data sourced in near real time form the Met Office (Amdars, Metars, Synop).
• Near real time runs of the Met Office African limited area model (Africa-LAM).
• Data from ground based flux stations (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).
• Data from sodars (UFAM instruments).
• Data collected on board the FAAM Bae-146 aircraft in July-August 2006 (*).
• Model fields.
• Data from the DODO and DABEX campaigns are available to AMMA participants.

(*) The FAAM data include both core and non-core data (for a definition of core data, see the document on FAAM Instruments).

AMMA data are stored in either NetCDF or NASA Ames format. File names follow the BADC file name convention and (for FAAM data) the FAAM file name convention.

To make any of the applications above you need to register as a BADC user. If you have previously registered but forgotten your user ID and/or password, please contact the BADC helpdesk at badc@rl.ac.uk.

An agreement is also in place to give AMMA participants access to data from the related DODO and DABEX campaigns. Please refer to the dataset web pages for details on how to gain access and mention AMMA participation in your application. Similarly, DABEX and DODO participants can gain access to AMMA data. Please mention you are a participant of these projects when registering.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Any publication or communication based on or using AMMA-UK data – whether issued during or after the retention period applying to AMMA data – is subject to the clauses stated under Section 9.2 (Publication) of the AMMA-EU Consortium Agreement, which explain the procedure to be followed and provide details on the due acknowledgements to the AMMA Project and its funding by the EU Commission. In addition, the individual AMMA-UK investigators responsible for the measurements must be duly acknowledged, as well as their funding by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Documentation:

• AMMA Dataset log giving information on changes to the dataset.
• What is AMMA? – AMMA documentation maintained at UCAR.
• AMMA-UK Data Protocol – Conditions of Use of AMMA data at BADC.
• Article 9 of the AMMA-EU Consortium Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights (PDF).
• FAAM Data Protocol
• FAAM Conditions of Use applying to processed core flight data
• The FAAM File Name Convention.