UARS, MST-Radar, TOMS, and TOVS/SSU Data from the British Atmospheric Data Center, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory via WWW

The British Atmospheric Data Center, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
home page address on the WWW is 'http://www.badc.rl.ac.uk/'.

The British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC) is a specialist data centre
providing atmospheric data to the research community. The BADC is
sited at the CCL Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in Oxfordshire
and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Prior
to April 1994, the facility was funded by the Science and Engineering
Research Council (SERC) and was known as the Geophysical Data Facility
(GDF).

The data held at the BADC include:

+ HALOE_L2 - Halogen Occultation Experiment - Level 2
+ ISAMS_L3 - Improved Stratospheric And Mesospheric Sounder - Level 3
+ MLS_L3 - Microwave Limb Sounder - Level 3
+ MST Radar - Mesospheric, Stratospheric, Tropospheric Radar
+ SAMS - Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder
+ TOMS - Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer
+ TOVS/SSU - TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder
+ UKMO_ASS - UK Met Office Assimilated Data UARS

The Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE) was launched on the Upper
Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) on 12th September 1991 and began
operations on 11th October. It uses the technique of satellite solar
occultation to make measurements of vertical profiles of pressure,
temperature, aerosol extinction and mixing ratios of O3, HCl, HF, CH4,
H2O, NO and NO2. The instrument achieves near-global coverage in the
stratosphere and mesosphere.

The Improved Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder (ISAMS) was
launched on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) on 12th
September 1991. It operated until July 1992. ISAMS is an infra-red
radiometer, which observes thermal emission from the Earth's limb. The
technique of pressure modulator radiometry is used to derive vertical
profiles of temperature mixing ratios of carbon monoxide (CO), water
vapour (H2O), methane (CH4), ozone (O3), nitric acid (HNO3),
dinitrogen pentoxide (N2O5), nitrogen oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide
(NO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) and aerosol extinction. The measurements
span from the tropopause to the mesopause and cover the latitude range
80 deg. S to 80 deg. N (this is usually restricted to 34 deg. of
latitude in one hemisphere).

The The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) was launched on the Upper
Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) on the 12th September 1991. It
began collecting data on 19th September. It is the first
satellite-borne instrument to make atmospheric sounding measurements
at microwave frequencies. The instrument measures thermal emission
from the Earth's limb, from which vertical profiles of chlorine
monoxide (ClO), ozone (O3), water vapour (H2O) and atmospheric
temperature are derived. Sulphur dioxide (SO2) profiles are also
created for some periods.

The MST (Mesosphere, Stratosphere and Troposphere) Radar is primarily
a Wind Profiler measuring vertical profiles of the wind. The UK MST
Radar is situated at Capel Dewi near Aberystwyth in Wales. It was
developed and is operated jointly by the University of Wales and RAL
and is now funded by NERC. The MST Radar measures horizontal and
vertical wind velocities above the site, in the height range from 2km
to about 20 km. It can also receive daytime echoes from mesospheric
heights between about 75 and 90 km.

The Stratosphere and Mesosphere Sounder (SAMS) was launched on the
NIMBUS 7 satellite on 24th October 1978. Data is available between 1st
January 1979 and 9th June 1983. This sounder was a multi-channel
Infra-red radiometer designed to measure thermal emission from the
middle atmosphere at the earth's limb. The instrument used a technique
known as pressure-modulator radiometry to derive vertical profiles of
temperature and gas mixing ratios of carbon monoxide (CO), carbon
dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrogen oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O)
and water vapour (H2O). The latitude range covered by the temperature
measurements extends from 50 deg.S to 67.5 deg.N, whilst the gas
measurements have a more restricted range of 45 deg.S to 55
deg.N. Measurements were made in the height range 20-100km.

The Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) data consists of gridded
averages of total ozone measurements covering the entire globe,
starting from November 1978. From here you can obtain ASCII files of
TOMS data and background information on the spatial and temporal
coverage etc. TOMS instruments have been carried on the Nimbus-7 and
Meteor-3 satellites. The original Nimbus-7 TOMS operated from November
1978 until May 1993. Meteor-3 TOMS was launched in August 1991 and
operated until December 1994.

The United Kingdom Meteorological Office Assimilated Data Analyses for
the UARS project are sets of global meteorological analyses provided
by the United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) containing
3-dimensional fields of temperature, geopotential height and wind
components. They are produced primarily to provide independent
correlative data for instruments on the Upper Atmosphere Research
Satellite (UARS), and are generated using the technique of data
assimilation with data from operational meteorological observations.