An international long-term collaboration to study the climatic and environmental feedback mechanisms involved in the African monsoon, and in some of its consequences on society and human health. The programme, which started in 2004, has developed a network of ground-based observation stations over Sub-Saharan West Africa to measure heat flux and, for some stations, CO2 and H2O vapour fluxes. Files also include concomitant meteorological measurements (wind, temperature, pressure, humidity, rainfall) and soil physics parameters (soil temperature and moisture). The UK branch of AMMA makes use of several instruments provided by the UK Universities Facility for Atmospheric Measurement (UFAM) which are centred on the Niamey meso-site. The Facility for Airbourne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) aircraft was used during the July-August 2006 campaign.

The METAR reports describe hourly observations from 562 observation stations across the globe, including 131 UK stations. The data are produced by Synoptic observations for aviation purposes, giving measurements of parameters such as cloud amount, wind speed and direction, visibility, present weather, and maximum gust speed. The data are collected by observation stations worldwide and transmitted within the METAR message.