This is the first of an occasional series of bulletins from the IPCC DDC keeping you informed of progress about the Centre and about new developments relating to the availability of scenario information being handled by this IPCC initiative. You are receiving this email as a Registered User of the DDC web site.
The DDC web site is still under development. A preliminary full site should be operational by early May, with further developments through until July 1998. At present, the DDC has acquired GCM data for the HADCM2 and ECHAM4 experiments, with more data on the way from GFDL and the CCC. Material is being accumulated relating to climate and non-climatic baseline information, as well as emissions and socio-economic scenario information for the future. These latter will revolve around the IS92 scenarios and the new IS99 scenarios which another IPCC TaskGroup are working on right now.
The DDC web site is organised at three levels:
the Gateway 'Blue' pages, which provide overview information and a gateway to the site;
the Scenario 'Green' pages, which when activated will contain information about datasets, climate visualisation software, a data download facility and a user support service;
the GCM Archive 'Orange?' pages, from which full monthly GCM time series can be downloaded. Data for HADCM2 and ECHAM4 are already available from this page, but if you download these files now, make sure that you return to the Green Pages in weeks to come for guidance material and associated scenario information.
All these pages will be added to over the next weeks. The major developments will be notified to Registered Users through these bulletins. Please invite your colleagues who have an interest in this Data Centre to Register and be kept abreast of developments. The IPCC DDC is the primary means by which the IPCC is supporting the use of consistent scenarios in impacts assessments that may be cited in the Third Assessment Report.