CSIP Pilot Project

Introduction

The CSIP pilot project was conducted in July 2004 centred around the Chilbolton radar facility where there is a 25 metre radar dish with two of the most sophisticated meteorological radars in the world. The pilot project utilised many of the instruments and facilities from the NCAS Universities' Facility for Atmospheric Measurement (UFAM) including a Cessna aircraft, wind profiler, Doppler lidar, sodar and automatic weather stations and scientists from the universities of Aberystwyth, Leeds, Reading, Salford, Essex, Bath and UMIST as well also from the Met Office. A map shows the locations of the instruments used during the pilot campaign.

The network of UFAM, Met Office and satellite instruments and in particular the new clear-air radar situated on the Chilbolton dish enabled the observation of a wide range of events from early thermals and small cumulus clouds to mesoscale systems and upper level circulations in the atmosphere. The Met Office provided the CSIP team with forecasts of when and where showers were likely to break. The instruments were then activated to monitor the subtle meteorological changes that take place before the showers break. Data was gathered during several events ranging from showers initiated at the head of gust fronts to the early stages of development of a large-scale system that produced significant precipitation in the Midlands on 22 July 2004.

As well as recording several interesting developing convective events, the pilot project provided an opportunity to establish and refine campaign planning strategy, communication links and instrument interactions ahead of the three month campaign in 2005.

Availability of data

Data from the pilot project is is currently being collected and submitted to the BADC. The data is located in the CSIP archive and is currently available only to individuals associated with the campaign.

Data has been collected by many data providers and organisations and is stored centrally at the BADC. CSIP participants can apply for access to the archive to view the data. Please see the Instructions for accessing data webpage for details.

Services

• An online workspace has been created for CSIP participants in order to ease cross-project coordination and exchange of views, information and preliminary data. The workspace is only accessible to the project participants who have been invited. If you are a CSIP scientist and have not been invited to access the workspace, please contact the BADC helpdesk.
• Help on NetCDF and NASA Ames formats.
• NASA Ames formatted file checker.
• Netcdf file format checker.