Introduction
ITOP
(Intercontinental Transport of Ozone and Precursors) was an international project
involving teams from Germany, France, the UK and the USA.
Its aim was to study intercontinental transport of air pollutants by means
of coordinated flights over three geographic regions (namely, the East
coast of North America, Azores and the West coast of Europe).
ITOP was a component of the broader international programme
ICARTT
(International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and
Transformation), which coordinated the efforts of various American and
European groups who have developed plans for field campaigns in the summer
of 2004, with the aim of improving our understanding of the factors
determining air quality over the two continents and over remote regions of
the North Atlantic.
The British contribution to ITOP was funded by
NERC through the
UTLS-Ozone (Upper Troposphere / Lower
Stratosphere Ozone) Directed Research Programme and made use of the
FAAM Bae-146 aircraft.
Availability of data and file format
The ITOP-UK data set includes
- Trajectories and other forecast products calculated by John Methven
(University of Reading),
based on ECMWF forecast wind fields, to support ICARTT flight planning.
- Near-real-time chemical analyses produced by the University of Cambridge
using the pTOMCAT chemical transport model.
- Data collected onboard the FAAM
Bae-146 aircraft during the ITOP campaign (12 July - 3 August 2004).
These data include both core and non-core data.
A list of currently available
flight data
is provided.
Access to the processed BAe-146 core data is public and ruled by the
FAAM Data Protocol.
Access to the raw BAe-146 core data is restricted to FAAM staff.
Other ITOP-UK data, i.e. the forecast products and the Bae-146 non-core data,
are now public (with signature of the Met Office agreement required for the
forecasts), after having been restricted to the UTLS-Ozone and ICARTT participants
during a period of time of 2 years after the last flight, in agreement with the
UTLS-Ozone Data Protocol.
ITOP data are stored in either
NetCDF or ICARTT ASCII format
(
NASA Ames Format
updated as described in the
ICARTT Data Management Implementation Plan, pp. 8-17).
Data file names follow the ICARTT file name convention as described in the
ICARTT Data Management Implementation Plan
(pp. 7-8) but the launch number
L# is replaced by the FAAM flight number.
Access Restrictions
Data, forecasts, documentation and software supplied to the BADC by
the project teams are stored in the BADC
ITOP-UK archive,
from where they can be viewed and downloaded by authorised users (see below).
Forecasts can also be accessed via the ITOP-UK Forecasts interface web page.
Data providers and users should also be aware that the following documents apply
to the ITOP-UK data set.
- All flight data:
- Forecast products and Bae-146 non-core data:
Services, Documentation, Links to further information and references
Services and Documentation:
Links
Citation
Natural Environment Research Council, [Lewis, A.]. UTLS-Ozone - International Transport of Ozone and Precursors (ITOP-UK), [Internet]. NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre, 2004-, Date of Citation. Available from http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/view/badc.nerc.ac.uk__ATOM__dataent_itop-uk
Who to contact
If you have queries about these pages or difficulties accessing UTLS CIRRUS data
at the BADC then you should contact
BADC Support.
The ITOP-UK Principal Investigator is
Ally Lewis (University of York).
Other queries about the UTLS Ozone programme should be directed to the UTLS Ozone
Project Manager
Helen Rogers or to the Project Assistant
Rebecca Penkett.
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