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Central Facilities

Production of harmonized, reliable, and documented observational data in ACTRIS relies on appropriate Central Facilities (Calibration Centres, Data Centre) that ensure compliance with standard operating procedures and/or quality protocols. Calibration Centres include the existing European WDC and WCC components of GAW and the European component of the AERONET calibration facility and complement CCs already operating within other RIs (ICOS) or networks (NDACC) in Europe. The quality- assurance objectives are therefore compliant to international standards. 

ACTRIS Central Facilities currently operating in the context of ACTRIS-2 – World Calibration Centers of WMO-GAW (WCC, WDC) and other international networks (AERONET) are indicated in orange.

Five Calibration Centres are currently in operation in ACTRIS, each one organized as one consortium with two or three nodes (additional facilities (or nodes) may complete this landscape at a later stage):

  • The Lidar Calibration Facility (nodes: Romania, Italy, Germany);
  • The AERONET-Europe Calibration Facility for sun/sky photometers (nodes: France, Spain);
  • The European Centre for Aerosol Calibration that includes the GAW World Calibration Center for Aerosol Physics (WCC-AP) (nodes: Germany, France, and Czech Republic);
  • The European Calibration Facility for reactive gases that comprises the GAW WCC for Volatile Organic Compounds (WCC-VOC) and for Nitrogen Oxides (WCC-NOx)x(nodes: Germany, Finland, Switzerland);x) del GAW (nodos: Alemania, Finlandia, Suiza);
  • The Calibration Facility for Cloud Radars (nodes: The Netherlands, United Kingdom, France).

The data curation and storage services, including data management and necessary development work on, e.g., workflow documentation, metadata issues, etc., is handled by a dedicated Central Facility, the ACTRIS Data Centre (ACTRIS DC). ACTRIS follows the open research data initiative of the commission. ACTRIS data and products are interoperable to specific quality standards and free of charge. The ACTRIS Data Centre consists of contributing scientifically based topic facilities in Norway, Italy, Finland and France. ACTRIS DC is shared with EMEP and GAW World Data Centre for Aerosols (WDCA), and is linked to the WDC for Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere as well as with NDACC Data Centre. The architecture of the ACTRIS Data Centre is compliant to international frameworks such as the WMO Information System (WIS) and the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS).