Improved access for Met Office Weather data held in CEDA Archive
Posted on July 29, 2021 (Last modified on October 19, 2023) • 4 min read • 646 wordsThe CEDA Archive has been a conduit for the research community to access a range of weather data supplied by the Met Office under the NERC-Met Office agreement for many years.
Until today, users wishing to use these data had to submit repeat applications for access to each of the dataset collections they wanted to use (e.g. three applications were needed to access radiosonde data, wind profiler data and surface observations). However, thanks to the agreement of the Met Office, we have been able to simplify this process with a new combined access route for users of Met Office weather data. This means users will now only have to apply once to access these data.
You can apply for this new access here: https://services.ceda.ac.uk/cedasite/resreg/application?attributeid=ukmo_wx
The new combined access route has been applied to weather related datasets in the CEDA Archive including:
You can see a full list of the dataset collections (with links to their catalogue entries) covered by this new access route at the bottom of our help article about this change, here.
Dataset from the Met Office Hadley Centre or those already available under the Open Government Licence are not covered by this new combined access route.
If you are a new user you simply need to find one of the datasets (see list) within the access group and apply for one of the datasets. Once granted you will then be able to access all the other datasets part of this new combined access route.
Existing users of datasets now covered by the new access route will need to apply for access to this new combined access
group by the end of August 2021. We’ll be emailing these uses during August to help them through this process.
Parallel access will be in place for existing access until the end of August 2021. After this, the existing access groups will be removed in order to allow CEDA to complete the transition to the new access arrangements. We hope that the length of the transition period will allow users to transition smoothly and benefit from the increased access they then achieve. Beyond greater access to more Met Office data, existing users should not notice any other changes.
The Met Office also permits access to these data for governmental use (e.g. by use within government departments or sponsored projects) through a dedicated option as part of the application process. Existing users with such access will also need to re-apply for access.
As with the previous arrangements, access via this new route is only granted for the purpose included in the application. Where the use needs to change this requires a fresh application to be submitted which can be done at any time using the ‘request access’ link on any of the datasets covered by this new access application route.
No additional actions are needed with regards to JASMIN user accounts - the change in the access is managed through your CEDA Archive account.
If you don’t already have access to Met Office data then you may need to link your CEDA Archive account to your JASMIN User account - see here for instructions - and then follow the steps above for a ‘new user’. If you do already have access, then you will need to follow the steps under ‘existing users’ above.
We hope that this new access route will help our users to have easier access to Met Office data to aid their research.
If you have any issues or comments please contact the CEDA helpdesk.