IGAS (IAGOS for the GMES Atmospheric Service) was a European FP7 project (2013-2016), which served as a bridge between IAGOS and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). This project aimed to make IAGOS in situ measurements available to the GMES Atmospheric Service in both near-real-time and delayed mode. Some of the work focused on the harmonization and systematic evaluation of the data quality collected on board the aircraft, and the improvement of IAGOS data discoverability.
IAGOS-DC focused on database developments to improve the accessibility of the data to both CAMS and other users. For this, the metadata of the IAGOS measurements were redefined to ensure that they were compliant with CF naming conventions. Semantic information was also added to the metadata to improve the search capabilities, and the harmonized uncertainties on each measurement were incorporated into the records. Through this effort the IAGOS-CARIBIC, historic MOZAIC, and IAGOS-CORE data were integrated into the IAGOS-DC in a common format.
To facilitate the application of IAGOS and other airborne data with the fields generated from CAMS, interoperability was established between the IAGOS Database, the HALO Database at DLR, and the JOIN interface to the CAMS database in Jülich, all of which were linked with a web portal. The DLR HALO database was extended to allow machine-to-machine interoperability with the IAGOS database and the JOIN interface. The interactive visualization across servers that has been realized in JOIN was a major step forward, with the JOIN common data model (CDM) allowing flexible access to aircraft and model data, whereby datasets with many different geometries can be accessed through a common API.
The IAGOS Data Portal served as the web portal linking the three IAGOS data centres. A shared authorization between the IAGOS data centres using API-keys was established such that users do not have to log in multiple times when using data from different sources. The IAGOS Data Portal was also improved through pagination, a new Database management system and a description page for each flight. Quicklook plots have been added for browsing data, and flight tracks are plotted both in real time and when making data selections.