This dataset contains about 5 years of analysed observations regarding the degree of convective aggregation, or clumping, across the tropics - these are averaged onto a large-scale grid. There are also additional variables which represent environmental fields (e.g. sea surface temperature from satellite data, or humidity profiles averaged from reanalysis data) averaged onto the same large-scale grid. The main aggregation index is the Simple Convective Aggregation Index (SCAI) originally defined in Tobin et al. 2012, Journal of Climate. The data were created during the main years of CloudSat and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite data so that they could be compared with vertical cloud profiles from this satellite data, and the results of this analysis appear in Stein et al. 2017, Journal of Climate. Each file is one year of data (although the year may not be complete). Each variable is an array: var(nlon, nlat, [nlev], ntime) longitude, latitude, pressure, time are variables in each file units are attributes of each variable (except non-dimensional ones) missing_value is 3.0E20 and is an attribute of each variable Time is in days since 19790101:00Z and is every 3hours at 00z, 03z, ... The actual temporal frequency of the data is described for each variable below. The data is for each 10deg X 10deg lat/lon box, 30S-30N (at outer edges of box domain), with each box defined by its centre coordinates and with boxes overlapping each other by 5deg in each direction. In general, each variable is a spatial average over each box, with the value set to missing if more than 15% of the box is missing data. Exceptions to this are given below. The most important exception is for the brightness temperature data, used in aggregation statistics, which is filled in using neighborhood averaging if no more than 5% of the pixels are missing, but otherwise is considered to be all missing data. The percentage of missing pixels is recorded in 'bt_miss_frac'.

This dataset comprises of model output from 25 runs (5 case studies, with 5 runs in each case study) of the Met Office Unified Model (MetUM) in realistic limited-area one-way nesting mode. The output data include values for model fields (e.g. temperature, humidity, winds, pressure) at model grid points over regularly spaced time intervals. These runs were used in a paper on convective aggregation: Holloway (2017, Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems). All runs use the ""New Dynamics"" dynamical core, MetUM version 7.5, as described in Holloway (2017). The simulations are run with 4-km horizontal grid spacing. They all have a horizontal domain size of 20 degrees latitude X 20 degrees longitude (or 574 X 574 grid points, although the grid points in the outer 8 points on all sides, the ""rim"", should be discarded before analysis), with 70 vertical levels. All runs are initialised from operational analyses from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) taken from actual cases. Lateral boundary conditions are comprised of 6-hourly ECMWF analyses, and the model is relaxed to these conditions in and near the outer rim as described in Holloway (2017). Sea surface temperatures (SST) are taken from the initial ECMWF analysis and are held constant in time for the 15 days (but are not constant in space). There are small land regions in four of the case studies which include an interactive land surface model. Each simulation was run for 15 days. The model output includes hourly model-level prognostic variables (temperature, specific humidity, pressure, wind components, liquid water, ice water) as well as some model-level increments to temperature and specific humidity. There are also many fields containing surface variables and fluxes (averaged over each hour or every 15 minutes). Note that the ""control"" simulations have slightly more available data than the other four runs in each of the five case studies. The five case studies are centred on the equator and occur between 2008 and 2010. See Holloway (2017) for further details: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017MS000980/full For each case, there are five runs: 1) control (interactive radiation, interactive surface fluxes) 2) constant radiative cooling run (radiative cooling over sea points is prescribed from domain-time mean of control run) 3) constant surface flux run (surface latent and sensible heat fluxes over sea points are prescribed from domain-time mean of control run) 4) constant radiative cooling and constant surface flux run (combination of 2 and 3 above) 5) no rain evaporation run (rain is prevented from evaporating in the atmosphere)"

The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, operated by EUMETSAT (The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), provide almost continuous imagery to meteorologists and researchers in Europe and around the world. These include visible, infra-red, water vapour, High Resolution Visible (HRV) images and derived cloud top height, cloud top temperature, fog, snow detection and volcanic ash products. These images are available for a range of geographical areas. This dataset contains RGB 'False Colour' 321 product images from MSG satellites over the tropics. Imagery available from March 2005 onwards at a frequency of 15 minutes (some are hourly) and are at least 24 hours old. RGB images are composite images generated by combining two or more channels and displaying in colour. The naming convention describes which channel is assigned to the red, green and blue colours. For example RGB 321 means that channel 3 (1.6 micron) is on the red, channel 2 (0.8 micron) is on the green and channel 1 (0.6 micron) is on the blue. This combination can then highlight different physical features through the differing amounts of red, green and blue and hence give a unique colour to that feature. In this case, turquoise clouds contain ice crystals, whilst white clouds are water clouds (inc. fog). Vegetation creates a green signal and sandy areas are pink. Snow covered ground is turquoise. Note: a change in product can be seen from a change to software implemented on 25/11/2013 where the scaling and gamma correction of the R, G, and B channels were tuned to give an improved image, in effect lightening the brighter colours in the image image. The geographic extent for images within this datasets is available via the linked documentation 'MSG satellite imagery product geographic area details'. Each MSG imagery product area can be referenced from the third and fourth character of the image product name giving in the filename. E.g. for EEAO11 the corresponding geographic details can be found under the entry for area code 'AO' (i.e West Africa).

The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, operated by EUMETSAT (The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), provide almost continuous imagery to meteorologists and researchers in Europe and around the world. These include visible, infra-red, water vapour, High Resolution Visible (HRV) images and derived cloud top height, cloud top temperature, fog, snow detection and volcanic ash products. These images are available for a range of geographical areas. This dataset contains cloud top temperature product images from MSG satellites over the tropics. Imagery available from March 2005 onwards at a frequency of 15 minutes (some are hourly) and are at least 24 hours old. The geographic extent for images within this datasets is available via the linked documentation 'MSG satellite imagery product geographic area details'. Each MSG imagery product area can be referenced from the third and fourth character of the image product name giving in the filename. E.g. for EEAO11 the corresponding geographic details can be found under the entry for area code 'AO' (i.e West Africa).

The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, operated by EUMETSAT (The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), provide almost continuous imagery to meteorologists and researchers in Europe and around the world. These include visible, infra-red, water vapour, High Resolution Visible (HRV) images and derived cloud top height, cloud top temperature, fog, snow detection and volcanic ash products. These images are available for a range of geographical areas. This dataset contains cloud and snow mask product images from MSG satellites over the tropics. Imagery available from March 2005 onwards at a frequency of 15 minutes (some are hourly) and are at least 24 hours old. The geographic extent for images within this datasets is available via the linked documentation 'MSG satellite imagery product geographic area details'. Each MSG imagery product area can be referenced from the third and fourth character of the image product name giving in the filename. E.g. for EEAO11 the corresponding geographic details can be found under the entry for area code 'AO' (i.e West Africa).

The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, operated by EUMETSAT (The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), provide almost continuous imagery to meteorologists and researchers in Europe and around the world. These include visible, infra-red, water vapour, High Resolution Visible (HRV) images and derived cloud top height, cloud top temperature, fog, snow detection and volcanic ash products. These images are available for a range of geographical areas. This dataset visible images from MSG satellites over the tropics. Imagery available from March 2005 onwards at a frequency of 15 minutes (some are hourly) and are at least 24 hours old. The geographic extent for images within this datasets is available via the linked documentation 'MSG satellite imagery product geographic area details'. Each MSG imagery product area can be referenced from the third and fourth character of the image product name giving in the filename. E.g. for EEAO11 the corresponding geographic details can be found under the entry for area code 'AO' (i.e West Africa).

The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, operated by EUMETSAT (The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), provide almost continuous imagery to meteorologists and researchers in Europe and around the world. These include visible, infra-red, water vapour, High Resolution Visible (HRV) images and derived cloud top height, cloud top temperature, fog, snow detection and volcanic ash products. These images are available for a range of geographical areas. This dataset contains infa-red images from MSG satellites over the tropics. Imagery available from March 2005 onwards at a frequency of 15 minutes (some are hourly) and are at least 24 hours old. The geographic extent for images within this datasets is available via the linked documentation 'MSG satellite imagery product geographic area details'. Each MSG imagery product area can be referenced from the third and fourth character of the image product name giving in the filename. E.g. for EEAO11 the corresponding geographic details can be found under the entry for area code 'AO' (i.e West Africa).

The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, operated by EUMETSAT (The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), provide almost continuous imagery to meteorologists and researchers in Europe and around the world. These include visible, infra-red, water vapour, High Resolution Visible (HRV) images and derived cloud top height, cloud top temperature, fog, snow detection and volcanic ash products. These images are available for a range of geographical areas. This dataset contains cloud top height product images from MSG satellites over the tropics. Imagery available from March 2005 onwards at a frequency of 15 minutes (some are hourly) and are at least 24 hours old. The geographic extent for images within this datasets is available via the linked documentation 'MSG satellite imagery product geographic area details'. Each MSG imagery product area can be referenced from the third and fourth character of the image product name giving in the filename. E.g. for EEAO11 the corresponding geographic details can be found under the entry for area code 'AO' (i.e West Africa).

The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, operated by EUMETSAT (The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), provide almost continuous imagery to meteorologists and researchers in Europe and around the world. These include visible, infra-red, water vapour, High Resolution Visible (HRV) images and derived cloud top height, cloud top temperature, fog, snow detection and volcanic ash products. These images are available for a range of geographical areas. This dataset visible images from MSG satellites over the tropics. Imagery available from March 2005 onwards at a frequency of 15 minutes (some are hourly) and are at least 24 hours old. The geographic extent for images within this datasets is available via the linked documentation 'MSG satellite imagery product geographic area details'. Each MSG imagery product area can be referenced from the third and fourth character of the image product name giving in the filename. E.g. for EEAO11 the corresponding geographic details can be found under the entry for area code 'AO' (i.e West Africa).

The Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites, operated by EUMETSAT (The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), provide almost continuous imagery to meteorologists and researchers in Europe and around the world. These include visible, infra-red, water vapour, High Resolution Visible (HRV) images and derived cloud top height, cloud top temperature, fog, snow detection and volcanic ash products. These images are available for a range of geographical areas. This dataset contains infa-red reflectance images from MSG satellites over the tropics. Imagery available from March 2005 onwards at a frequency of 15 minutes (some are hourly) and are at least 24 hours old. The geographic extent for images within this datasets is available via the linked documentation 'MSG satellite imagery product geographic area details'. Each MSG imagery product area can be referenced from the third and fourth character of the image product name giving in the filename. E.g. for EEAO11 the corresponding geographic details can be found under the entry for area code 'AO' (i.e West Africa).