NERC Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere (MST) Radar: stratospheric and tropospheric structure and dynamics observations, version 3
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere (MST) Radar is operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council at the Radar Facility's (MSTRF's) site in Capel Dewi, near Aberystwyth, Mid-Wales. The 46.5 MHz pulsed Doppler radar is used primarily for making atmospheric observations over the approximate altitude range 2 - 20 km, i.e. over most of the troposphere and the lower stratosphere - hence the term "ST-mode". Additional observations are made over the approximate altitude range 56 - 96 km, i.e. covering the mesosphere - hence the term "M-mode" (see related dataset).
The instrument has been in operation, using the Dopppler Beam Swinging technique (see linked documentation for further details), since late 1989. It was intially operated on a campaign basis, but switched to quasi-continuous observations (i.e. close to 24-7 operation) in late 1997.
This dataset includes radial data products, i.e. range profiles along each beam pointing direction, and the "Cartesian" data products that are derived from them in the form of altitude profiles. The latter are used for most purposes. Data products are derived from the version 3 processing scheme, which supersedes earlier versions. Further details can be found via the linked documentation. Radial data products include:
signal power (relates to atmospheric structure)
radial velocity (relates to wind speed along the beam pointing direction)
spectral width (relates to turbulence intensity)
Cartesian data products include:
horizontal wind components (zonal and meridional)
vertical wind velocity
vertical beam signal power
tropopause altitude
vertical beam spectral width
radar return aspect sensitivity
Note - some files are released marked as '-suspect'. These have been released to permit early access to the data where the majority of data are known to pass quality control, but a small, limited part of the data have been identified as being 'suspect'. An internal remark about the suspect data may be found within the file's metadata 'comments' attribute.
Simple
- Date (Publication)
- 2012-09-27T14:42:59
- Date (Creation)
- 2012-09-27T14:42:59
- Citation identifier
- https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/6d9a74e917d04cde9f0f7fa5fb3a9dd4
- Citation identifier
- NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) / 6d9a74e917d04cde9f0f7fa5fb3a9dd4
- Point of contact
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role Natural Environment Research Council Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere Radar Facility at Aberystwyth (MSTRF)
unknown
Author Unavailable
Hooper, David A.
Unavailable
Author NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
Custodian NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
Distributor Unavailable
Vaughan, Geraint
Unavailable
Principal investigator NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
pointofContact NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
Publisher
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Daily
- Update scope
- Dataset
- Keywords
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MST Radar
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NERC
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mesosphere
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SNR
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echo power
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spectral width
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GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0
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atmospheric conditions
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- Access constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- Access to these data is available to any registered CEDA user. Please Login or Register for a CEDA account to gain access.
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Spatial representation type
- Grid
- Language
- English
- Topic category
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- Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere
)
- Begin date
- 2005-04-30T23:00:00
- Unique resource identifier
- WGS 84
- Distribution format
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Name Version Data are netCDF formatted
- Distributor contact
-
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
Distributor
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/6d9a74e917d04cde9f0f7fa5fb3a9dd4 CEDA Data Catalogue Page
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name http://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/mst/data/mst-products-v3/st-mode DOWNLOAD
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name http://mst.nerc.ac.uk/cgi-bin/mstlog_public/mst_event_search.py MST radar facility instrument performance log
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name http://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/mst/plots/st-diagnostics MST Radar Facility radar stratosphere/troposphere diagnostic parameter plots (secondary signals, beam comparisons, theta-s compensation factors)
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name http://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/mst/plots/st-mode MST Radar Facility radar stratosphere/troposphere data parameter plots (winds, echo power, shear)
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Conformance result
- Title
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Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services
- Date (Publication)
- 2010-12-08
- Statement
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Data are acquired by the MST radar facility and sent to the BADC within an hour of acquisition. Data are then immediately ingested into the BADC archives.
Metadata
- File identifier
- 6d9a74e917d04cde9f0f7fa5fb3a9dd4 XML
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Parent identifier
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Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere (MST) Radar Facility: surface and upper air
meteorology measurements from Aberystwyth, mid-Wales
bd095d86e4a9f0c706b08058dbad3b31
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Date stamp
- 2025-06-15T02:05:17
- Metadata standard name
- UK GEMINI
- Metadata standard version
-
2.3
- Metadata author
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)
Point of contact