FAAM - Rain in Cumulus over the Ocean (RICO)

General Info

Title:	FAAM - Rain in Cumulus over the Ocean (RICO)
Type:	Data Entity
Sub-Type:	Measurement
Abbreviation:	rico
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_rico

Summary
A brief description of the data.

A US-led international project to study trade wind cumulus clouds in the Caribbean. The main objective is to characterise and understand the properties of trade wind cumulus at all scales, with particular emphasis on understanding the warm rain process and determining its importance. The field campaign took place near Antigua and Barbuda from the 17th of November 2004 to the 24th of January 2005. The UK participation to RICO involved ground-based measurements and the use of the FAAM aircraft based at Antigua, from the 5th to the 28th of January 2005.

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 FAAM (Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements) puts at the scientists' disposal a large atmospheric research aircraft (the BAE-146-301 aircraft) through a scheme of project selection and combined funding. It is run jointly by NERC and by the UK Met Office, and is one of the NERC Centres for Atmospheric Science (NCAS). The BADC is the FAAM designated data centre.

RICO (Rain In Cumulus over the Ocean) is a US-led international project to study trade wind cumulus clouds in the Caribbean. The main objective is to characterise and understand the properties of trade wind cumulus at all scales, with particular emphasis on understanding the warm rain process and determining its importance. The field campaign took place near Antigua and Barbuda from the 17th of November 2004 to the 24th of January 2005.

The UK participation to RICO involved the use of the FAAM aircraft based at Antigua, from the 5th to the 28th of January 2005, including transit flights from Cranfield to Antigua and back.

Data availability and file format

Data collected onboard the FAAM Bae-146 aircraft is stored in the RICO archive at the BADC.

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

FAAM processed core data are stored in NetCDF. Processed non-core data are stored in NetCDF or NASA Ames. Raw core data are stored in zipped VMS files. Some software to read, manipulate and convert these formats into each other are provided by the BADC (software directory in the FAAM archive) or other agencies.

RICO 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.

Access Restrictions

Access to and use of the data are ruled by the RICO-UK Data Protocol.

Access to the FAAM Bae-146 non-core data is now public, after having been restricted to the RICO-UK participants during a period of 12 months following the end of the dataset collection, in agreement with the RICO-UK data Protocol. All users are requested to acknowledge the data providers in any publication based on RICO data.
Authorised users of the Processed Bae-146 core data now include everyone. If you would like to access these data , please follow the access to FAAM Processed core data instructions online. Access is granted automatically once you have agreed online with the FAAM Conditions of Use.
Access to raw Bae-146 core data is restricted to the FAAM staff. If you are a FAAM instrument operator and would like to access these data, please follow the access to raw FAAM core data instructions online.

Note that RICO data users are still requested to contact the principal investigators prior to any use of the data. FAAM scientists may request acknowledgement (or joint authorship) in any publications based, using or quoting their data.

For more details on FAAM data restrictions, please see the FAAM Data Access Rules.

Services and Links to further information

Services to RICO Campaign participants

RICO Data Providers Guide to submit data to the BADC Archive.
BADC NASA-Ames file checker
BADC NetCDF file checker

Documentation

RICO Scientific Overview
Tables showing archive contents arranged by flight number/date and by campaign with links to the archive.
FAAM Flight Schedule - Calendar of past FAAM flights based on the data archived - Updated daily.
Tables showing which core parameters were measured for each flight.
List of FAAM campaigns, with links to the relevant BADC FAAM dataset details and specific data access conditions.
List of downloadable software packages to write, read and handle NetCDF files.

Links to further information

RICO portal at UCAR.
RICO-UK
The Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) Web site

References

A comprehensive list of RICO Publications is available from the RICO Portal.

Citation

Date of citation

Who to contact

The RICO Principal Investigators in the UK are Alan Blyth (University of Leeds) and Phil Brown (Met Office).
The FAAM Ops Manager is Maureen Smith.
Any query regarding the data should be sent to the BADC help desk.

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".

FAAAM data provided as is by FAAM RICO campaign participants as the campaign was underway.

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
FAAM, NERC, Met Office

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
Alan Blyth, University of Leeds
Phil Brown, Met Office

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	RICO Data Directory
Logo	RICO Logo
Documentation	FAAM NERC website
Documentation	RICO Conditions of Use
Documentation	RICO Portal at UCAR
Documentation	BADC Doc: List of FAAM Campaigns
Documentation	Apply for access to FAAM RICO Core data
Documentation	RICO-UK 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

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

Spatial coverage
Max Y: 18
Min X: -62	Max X -60
Min Y 16

Temporal coverage
Start Date:	2005-01-05
End Date:	2005-01-28

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

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