DATA AT SIRTA
One of the missions of the SIRTA Atmospheric observatory is to collect measurements of parameters useful for research and teaching in atmospheric sciences.
SIRTA has a wide variety of instruments representing more than one hundred sensors, installed in 4 measurement areas, on the plateau de Saclay (Ecole polytechnique and CEA campus). Each instrument is a source of data which for the oldest has fed the SIRTA database since 2002. These observations, carried out continuously 24/7, are supported by a set of computer tools that use the network infrastructure of Ecole Polytechnique and CEA and the computing and storage infrastructure of the IPSL mesocenter.
The archive of several terabytes built up over time since 2002, includes several million raw data files directly from the instrument acquisition systems. These files are processed daily in order to standardize the documentation and format of the data and thus facilitate their exploitation, to generate new geophysical products useful for research or to create real-time graphs, necessary to monitor the proper functioning of the instrumentation. Unique and irreplaceable data are secured thanks to daily backups on different media and sites of the observatory.
SIRTA is also one of the 7 instrumented sites listed in the ACTRIS-FR Research Infrastructure. It contributes to the national and international research effort by feeding the ACTRIS-FR database as well as international thematic databases:
It relies on the national pole of data and services for the atmosphere AERIS which hosts the ACTRIS-FR database and redistributes some data to ACTRIS-EU.
Access to the observatory database
The SIRTA observation data are divided between two databases with different access rights:
- The private database which contains the raw data directly from the observation instruments and whose access is reserved to the instrumental managers
- The freely accessible public database which contains reformatted data and geophysical products derived from the raw data.
| Access | Private database | Public database |
|---|---|---|
| SIRTA | User ID : assigned upon request on the application form password : required | User ID : sirta_access Password : none |
| SIRTA | Not accessible | SIRTA page |
| IPSL Mesocentre | Request an account and specific rights on the mesocentre application form Structure: /bdd/SIRTA/priv/basesirta/… | Have an account on the mesocenter (contact mesocenter) Structure: /bdd/SIRTA/pub/basesirta/… |
The Observatory website also offers a set of data-related tools:
Access to SIRTA data in the AERIS data centre
The SIRTA database at AERIS offers a large majority of the observation data present in the observatory database, often delivered in NetCDF format and documented according to the CF convention. It also offers a range of geophysical products derived from the observation parameters of the ACTRIS-FR processing systems implemented at AERIS.
| Access | Private database | Public database |
|---|---|---|
| AERIS | Not available | Catalog Contact the centre in charge of the data to get them. |
The use of data is subject to a few rules of good practice which are described in a data usage policy.