New APAT project

, the new ARCHIve of MEteomarine Data for the Environment, has started on July 2005. ARCHIMEDE project has been developed by APAT in collaboration with the OGS of Trieste, Italy. The development and the realization of the informative system rely on the long experience of both partner in managing their data bases, like the network RON and RMN, for APAT, and the oceanographic data base for OGS.
The ARCHIMEDE project aims to facilitate the exchange of national meteo-marine data, gathering data and information which at the moment are spread on multiple sources, like public administration and private agencies. The collection, the quality control and the storage system of national data meets the need of making these data available as a reference for marine coastal research and actions. At the moment, data present on this system are coming from APAT (RMN and RON time series) and from the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics - OGS of Trieste.
The need of building this centralized database of observations is mainly due to the dissemination over multiple sources of a huge amount of marine coastal information that has made difficult the access to this data for climate study purposes, e.g. numerical models calibration.
Data management in a centralized dataset allows to develop standard procedures for data quality control. At the same time, the modular structure of the system allows to gather different kinds of information (e.g. from instruments or from cruises, both meteorological and marine data) referring to different periods.
The program also enables all national and regional research centers or agencies who want to join the project to access data, data products and information. The project will be presented in a Workshop in Roma (APAT, via Curtatone 3) on 29th-30th november.