ICOS Data Portal provides observational data and elaborated products on greenhouse gases. Datasets can be visualised and downloaded fully and/or partially; the instructions below detail how to search, find and download data.
How to search ICOS data
You can search for data using the Data Portal or SPARQL Endpoint (more advanced option). You can access and search for datasets on the Data Portal page using the filters from the Filters menu on the left side of the screen. The SPARQL endpoint can also be used to search for metadata. Furthermore, a summary of our major data products is also available, featuring links to filter the data in the Data Portal and more information about specific data releases.
The main Data Portal page has a search query options panel on the left side of the screen, with Filters and Advanced tabs, while the right side of the screen displays the data objects matching those filters using three views: the Search results view, Compact view, or Stations map.
Using the Filters tab, you can select which data objects you would like to find by changing the selections. You can click into the field and then use the drop-down menu to select an option, or begin typing to see matching options. The help icons can be clicked to provide more information about any filter field, and you can select multiple options for each field.
The Advanced tab in the search query options panel allows you to search for an exact PID or Filename, show deprecated objects, and view SPARQL queries based on the currently visible data objects. NOTE: Not all datasets presented in the Data Portal are directly available. Raw data that has not undergone quality is only available on request for both preview and download, but all information about the data is presented on the landing page. You can contact the responsible Thematic Centre (as indicated at the landing page of the dataset) to get access to this data.
About the landing page
A landing page presents available information on a data object or for example a station. In principle, all available metadata of the data object are included on its landing page. You can access the landing page by selecting the dataset from the list in the Data Portal. Note that only a subset of the metadata is shown on the human-readable web page – this is to reduce clutter and keep the contents clear and concise. However, many more details are encoded in machine-readable format in the form of linked data, accessible through content negotiation or through the links provided next to "Metadata", found on the right side of the screen beneath the station map.
We invite you to look through the metadata that is presented. If you think that additional information on the dataset should be presented on the landing page, please give us feedback.
How to visualise data
A picture says more than 1000 words – we understand that you want to look at the data of interest! There are several visualisation services integrated in the Data Portal for different types of data products, and therefore many of the datasets can be previewed graphically. If a preview is available, you will find an active Preview tab on the data object’s landing page, offering the possibility to view time series as scatter/line diagrams, geographical data as maps, or photographs as images. Our visualisation services are under active development, with plans to expand the number of previewable datasets and variables.
About the shopping cart system
The Data Portal service uses a shopping cart system – just like an online shop. You can put the datasets you like into the shopping cart. From there, you can visualise or download the data sets for free. When you are logged in on the user account, the cart is automatically saved so it is possible to change device before downloading.
Download ICOS data
You can download the data from the data cart. Note that you need to accept our Data Policy and Data Licensing Agreements first. When you want to download more often, it is recommended to create a user account and log in next time using that account. Using your account, you can permanently accept the data licence, allowing you to download data more easily.
To download data objects programmatically, using our API, you will need to create an account (see the ICOS Carbon Portal user account section below). Then, you can follow the instructions from the GitHub repository readme file, including an example of using the curl command to download a data object.
How to cite and acknowledge ICOS data
Sharing data is essential for making your research impactful and generalisable, as you often need data from multiple stations or over a long time period. Giving your data proper credit helps to secure funding for maintaining the stations that produce the data, which increases the quality and quantity of the available data. Moreover, within ICOS community, proper acknowledgements ensure that your papers are counted as using ICOS data. Learn how to properly cite and acknowledge ICOS data here.
Help for advanced users, sharing of our code at GitHub and raising issues
All code developed by ICOS Carbon Portal is shared in our GitHub repositories under a GPL license. For feature requests or bug reports, please give us feedback. The GitHub repositories also contains code examples and documentation on how to use our services for data providers and advanced data users that want to query our repository or download data using our python library icoscp python library (documentation available here).
ICOS Carbon Portal user account
If you are a frequent user of ICOS data and services, you can create a user account. This can be done by registering to the Data Portal at the ICOS Carbon Portal Authentication Service.
Using the services while being logged in through your account makes it possible to download data without accepting the data licence each time.
The best way to sign in is to use your institutional credentials through eduGAIN using the University sign in tab. If you are unable to use eduGAIN or experience an issue with eduGAIN, you can use the Social/OAuth sign in tab to log in with an ORCID, ATMO ACCESS, or Facebook account. You can also use the Password sign in option after using the Create account / forgot password tab to create an account using an email and password.