The Met Office had planned to stop updating GISST/GIICE datasets in May 2003. However, some problems were encountered in producing the GISST updates from March 2003. "The current route for producing GISST uses the version 1 of the Reynolds optimally interpolated SSTs as background field in some areas, and these fields are no longer being produced. We (The Met Office) could switch to using version 2, but this would produce some differences in the result, particularly for areas close to sea-ice." After careful consideration, the Met Office has decided to stop updating the GISST/GICE datasets. The last update is therefore for February 2003. The Met Office has a replacement product, called HadISST, which has been available from the Met Office as an historical dataset and is now being made operational (i.e. updated every month). HadISST has a different sea-ice analysis from GISST; as a consequence of this, the data will not be available until the 2nd of the month, 2 months afterwards (e.g. January's data will become available in March). The BADC is now working on making this replacement dataset available to registered users. Users will be informed in due course. We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause in the meantime. BADC Support 11/04/03.

Temporary Disruption to BADC FTP service on Friday 11th April 2003 from 2pm ============================================================================ The power supply to selected BADC computers is being checked. This will result in the disruption of BADC FTP services from 2pm on Friday 11th April for about an hour. Data will still be available for [download via the web](http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/data_browser/data_browser). We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause. BADC Support 10/04/03.

The BADC have opened a public discussion forum for discussion of anything related to atmospheric science or the data held by the BADC. You don’t even have to be registered to contribute! ...

The technical problems affecting the BADC over the past two day ( see previous news item) have now been fixed and all areas of the BADC site are now operational. We appologise for any inconvenience this disruption may have caused. ...

Due to technical difficulties, the following BADC Services are temporarily not available: My BADC New user registration and application for access to restricted datasets Search for dataset facility As an alternative, please use the Dataset Dataset Index. . Please note that the link to Catalogue Record is however not available due to the same problems. Search for Met Office Station details facility. For the time being, please use the link to List of Station names and numbers. Who’s who facility Access to the following datasets is currently not possible: CLAES-L3 ECMWF-ERA ECMWF-FOR ECMWF-TRJ LIMS METEOSAT NDSC SAMS TOMS UARS UKMO-CLIMOD UKMO-PUM All other services and access to datasets not listed above should be operational as usual. ...

Public release of some URGENT data ================================== The data collected for the *Tracers and Dispersion of Gaseous Pollutants* project under the auspices of the NERC *Urban Regeneration and the Environment (URGENT)* thematic programme have been released to the public domain. The data files are available [online](http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/data_browser/data_browser/badc/urgent/data/gaspol/) for browsing or downloading. More information about the URGENT data held at the BADC can be found at BADC Support 13th February 2003

Public release of PUMA data =========================== The data collected during the two PUMA campaings of Summer 1999 and Winter 2000 under the auspices of the NERC *Urban Regeneration and the Environment (URGENT)* thematic programme have been released to the public domain. The data files are available [online](http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/data_browser/data_browser/badc/urgent/data/pumaco/) for browsing or downloading. A *quick look* facility allows the user to view the contents of each file in a graphic mode. More information about the URGENT data held at the BADC can be found at BADC Support 11th December 2002

A new batch of high resolution radiosonde data is now available from the BADC. ============================================================================== The dataset now includes more recent data and data from extra stations. In particular 2 years of data from the Mount Pleasant (Falklands) site is included. Data from the Met Office autosonde sites will be made available as soon we have software to read it. More information about the High Resolution data held at the BADC can be found at: BADC Support 05th December 2002

Met Office Stratospheric Data - - NESDIS made a change to NOAA-16 processing affecting the stratospheric data ============================================================ Message from the Met Office: "NESDIS made a change to NOAA-16 processing on 22/11/02, which they expected to be null but has actually caused a significant degradation. As a result it has been excluded from the observations since then. This has significantly effected the stratospheric data. Efforts are being made to rectify this problem and we hope to be able to carry out reruns within a few weeks. Sorry for the inconvenience. In addition to the NOAA-16 problems we have realised that we have been failing to use NOAA-17 observations, which is why the impact of NOAA-16 failing was so severe. We hope to begin using the NOAA-17 observations operationally today, and reruns should follow." BADC Support 27th November 2002