VORTEX-SE Data and NOAA Data Sharing Policy
VORTEX-SE data is shared under the provisions of two NOAA data sharing policies. Note that these policies may evolve or be clarified to the VORTEX-SE community.
One policy pertains to routine data collected by NOAA. It also appears to pertain to data collection under NOAA contracts when the contract is purely for data collection (i.e., no support for analysis, study, publication, etc.) For example, in the Meso18-19 experiment, NSSL contracted with Texas A&M, the University of Louisiana at Monroe, the University of South Alabama, and Mississippi State to obtain soundings. Our sister laboratory, the Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division of the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory obtained special soundings from an additional site. These are examples of NOAA-generated and NOAA-contracted data. These data fall under the policy from the NOAA Environmental Data Management Committee. The most important aspect of this policy in VORTEX-SE is that data must be made available as soon as feasible, and in no case later than one year after collection, allowing for time to do quality-control work and prepare the data for archival.
The second NOAA data sharing policy pertains to data collected as part of grant-supported research. VORTEX-SE makes many grants to universities and other research institutions that often include support for specific data collection activities as well as subsequent research activities. This second data sharing policy allows researchers time to not only do quality control work, but also to do research leading to publication(s). The most important aspect of this policy is that data must be shared “no later than publication of a peer-reviewed article based on the data, or two years after the data are collected and verified, or two years after the original end date of the grant (not including any extensions or follow-on funding), whichever is soonest, unless a delay has been authorized by the NOAA funding program”. Language describing these requirements is included in every Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) announcement.
VORTEX-SE data is made widely available to the research community via the EOL web site described below. Researchers are encouraged to utilize these existing data sets to the extent possible. Future funding opportunities may be designed to encourage exploitation of these data sets.
Where to find VORTEX-SE Data
VORTEX-SE supports a data archive at NCAR’s Earth Observing Laboratory. VORTEX-SE researchers are required to make data available on this archive within the time windows specified in the NOAA data sharing policies (see above).
This is a permanent archive, meeting the NOAA goals of accessibility and discoverability. The data are freely available for any use; researchers are encouraged to communicate with the data originators to foster collaborations and gain further understanding of the limitations of the particular data sets.
EOL provides Digital Object Identifiers (DOI’s) for the archived data sets, allowing researchers to cite data sets in their publications.
Any researcher who believes they have identified a missing data set is encouraged to contact the VSE Coordinating Scientist (erik.rasmussen@noaa.gov).