Climate science demands on data management are growing rapidly as climate models grow in the precision with which they depict spatial structures and in the completeness with which they describe a vast range of physical processes. For the Climate Model Inter-comparison Project 5 (CMIP5), a distributed archive is being constructed to provide access to what is expected to be in excess of 10 Peta-bytes of global climate change projections. The data will be held at 30 or more computing centres and data archives around the world, but for users it will appear as a single archive described by one catalogue. In addition, the usability of the data will be enhanced by a three-step validation process and the publication of Digital Object Identifiers (doi) for all the data. For many users the spatial resolution provided by the global climate models (around 150km) is inadequate: the CORDEX project will provide data scaled down to around 10km. Evaluation of climate impacts often revolves around extremes and complex impact factors, requiring high volumes of data to be stored. At the same time, uncertainty about the optimal configuration of the models imposes the requirement that each scenario be explored with multiple models. This project will explore the challenges of developing a software management infrastructure which will scale to the multi-exabyte archives of climate data which are likely to be crucial to major policy decisions in by the end of the decade. Support for automated processing of the archived data and metadata will be essential. In the short term goal, strategies will be evaluated by applying them to the CORDEX project data.

The unique research capability of the Global Hawk, with ultra-long flights possible in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, provides a major new opportunity to advance atmospheric science. In response to the NERC/STFC/NASA collaborative initiative, we have assembled an experienced UK team that proposes to execute a research programme covering fundamental science and technology development, which, by working with the Global Hawk, will radically enhance our future research capabilities. The Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL) is a crucial region for chemistry/climate interactions. Building on work we have already done in this area , we will collaborate with NASA's ATTREX programme to study the TTL over the Pacific Ocean and South East Asia, with new measurements and analysis. We will address fundamental questions related to atmospheric composition, radiation and transport. The TTL controls the transport of water vapour, the crucial radiative gas, into the stratosphere; we will advance understanding of the role of sub-visible cirrus in water vapour processes. The TTL is also the main route by which very short-lived halogen species, which represent a large uncertainty in future stratospheric ozone evolution, enter the stratosphere. We will improve knowledge of the budgets of these gases and of their chemical transformation and transport through the TTL, including the role of convective transport into the TTL and the subsequent routes for transport from the TTL to the lower stratosphere. Improving representation of these processes in global chemistry/climate models is a key aim. In order to study these processes, The FAAM BAe-146 will be deployed in Guam in Jan/Feb 2014. It will fly coordinated flights with the Global Hawk which will make measurements in the same period in the TTL over the West Pacific. Detailed involvement in all phases of the collaborative missions with ATTREX will enhance the UK potential for future research using the Global Hawk, including advanced capability in mission planning and methodologies for complex, real-time data analysis. The aircraft measurements will be interpreted in conjunction with ground-based and balloon-based measurements of very short-lived halogen species and ozone, using a complementary group of regional high resolution models, global composition models and a global cirrus model. We will develop and test two new instruments and new software for the payload/mission-scientist interface, which are ideally suited for the capabilities of the Global Hawk. One new instrument will allow quantification in the TTL of the important physical properties of sub- and super-micron sized particles, allowing new information about clouds and radiation. We will develop a new short-wave IR spectrometer to measure greenhouse (CO2, CH4, and H2O) and other (CO) gases in the lower atmosphere by remote sensing, taking advantage of the very long flights in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Both instruments will be flight-tested in CAST. As well as addressing the specifics of this call, CAST addresses the central vision of the Technology theme: "to engage scientists, technologists, computer specialists and engineers working both within the NERC community and outside it, identifying that in many cases it will only be through developing new partnerships that the most challenging innovations in technology can be enabled" (http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/themes/tap/documents/tap-technologies-2009.pdf). CAST brings new technology expertise in machine learning into the NERC community and strengthens the links between NERC scientists and the technology groups at Hertfordshire and the Astronomy Technology Centre.