The annual meeting of the international Steering Committee (SC) for NDACC was held 10-14 September 2018 in Geneva, Switzerland at the headquarters of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Geir Braathen of WMO hosted the meeting.
Following a brief discussion of the agenda and recurring action items, the status of the appointments of Instrument Working Group (IWG) Representatives was reviewed, and the recommended renewals and elections by the IWGs were approved. A review of the status, departure, needed replacement, and possible addition of members of the SC followed.It was noted that M. De Mazière’s term as Co-Chair of the SC is up for re-election in 2019.
The new website for NDACC was reviewed. It was noted that only the URL http://www.ndacc.org should be referenced in publications or websites since that will always point users to the correct website.
Reports were received from the IWGs (Dobson/Brewer, Infrared, Lidar, Microwave, Sondes, Spectral UV, and UV/Vis). These detailed many activities undertaken both by the individual measurement sites and groups within the IWG. This included discussions of funding concerns and potential new sites.
There were presentations from the Cooperating Networks on activities of relevance to NDACC and also presentations from the World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre (WOUDC) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). Discussions with C3S highlighted the possibility of large-scale ingestion of NDACC data for assimilation for air quality and climate predictions.
Recurring themes of the meeting regarding data were:
- The use of multiple formats for both data, principally AMES and HDF formats, and metadata;
- Ensuring that NDACC data providers are properly acknowledged when their data were used;
- Licensing formats for the use of data, e.g. Creative Commons Licensing types;
- How should NDACC implement Digital Object Identifiers on its heterogeneous data archive;
- Should the DHF hold multiple versions of a dataset.
A digital object identifier (DOI) is a unique alphanumeric identifier assigned by a registration agency that points to a specific dataset, allowing it to be cited in a publication, and provides a persistent link to its location on the Internet. Relevant to the NDACC, a dataset may be fixed (complete, no changes allowed) or continuing (incremental data being added to a time series). An ad hoc group was set up to further explore this issue as there are several possible implementation schemes.
An allied issue is that of “versioning” because a change in the processing algorithm (new algorithm, new ancillary data, or updated spectroscopy) that improves a dataset will require a change in the DOI. An ad hoc group will examine this issue. A third group will revise the data policy for users informed by these changes to data management.
The proposal to hold the 2019 SC meeting in Tsukuba, Japan from 14-18 October was accepted. It was also decided to hold the 2020 meeting in College Park, MD, USA. Proposals for a meeting in Europe in 2021 will be discussed and voted on at the 2019 meeting.
Thursday morning was devoted to a series of science presentations on aspects of NDACC science and topics of interest to NDACC scientists. Several presentations on behalf of Chinese research groups were particularly welcome.
On Friday a visit to the MeteoSwiss observing site in Payerne was hosted by MeteoSwiss. The day consisted of a morning of science presentations by MeteoSwiss personnel followed by watching the ozonesonde launch that day. After a lunch provided by our hosts, participants toured several of the instruments at the site and then it was back to Geneva to depart for home.
All of the meeting participants would like to thank WMO and MeteoSwiss for their excellent facilities and assistance with the meeting.