Operations of the World Data Centre for Geomagnetism (Edinburgh)

The British Geological Survey has operated a World Data Centre for Geomagnetism since 1966. We hold geomagnetic time-series from around 280 observatories worldwide, for a number of time- resolutions from one-minute to annual, along with various magnetic survey, model and activity index data. The operation of this dynamic data centre contributes towards global geomagnetic field modelling efforts and provides a valuable service to the worldwide research community. We describe the operation of this data centre detailing the range of data held and our data collection, storage and distribution processes and infrastructure. We describe the quality control checks we apply to incoming data and our work interacting with other data centres for geomagnetism to share data and improve the overall consistency of data held. We also demonstrate how we are developing the metadata associated with our datasets and note the current issues around establishing metadata standards for geomagnetism

Geomagnetism : review 2009

The Geomagnetism team measures, records, models and interprets variations in the Earth’s natural magnetic fields, across the world and over time. Our data and expertise help to develop scientific understanding of the evolution of the solid Earth and its atmospheric, ocean and space environments. We also provide geomagnetic products and services to industry and academics and we use our knowledge to inform and educate the public, government and the private sector

The British Geological Survey's new Geomagnetic Data Web Service

Increasing demand within the geomagnetism community for high quality real-time or near-real-time observatory data means there is a requirement for data producers to have a robust and scalable data processing infrastructure capable of delivering geomagnetic data products over the Internet in a variety of formats. We describe a new software system, developed at BGS, which will allow access to our geomagnetic data products both within our organisation's intranet and over the Internet. We demonstrate how the system is designed to afford easy access to the data by a wide range of software clients and allow rapid development of software utilizing our observatory data