[Im4ca-wp1.beta] IM4CA Romania Campaing 2026 Finalsied metadata and dataformat for in-situ measurements

Fri Jul 10 15:22:25 CEST 2026

Dear Sara, dear all,

I have updated the python tool gpeq 

https://gitlab.com/empa503/atmospheric-modelling/gauss-emission-quantification/

to allow exporting the drive segments performed at the individual sites in the format suggested by Sara. I will check with Sara whether the format is compatible or not.

I have updated the im4ca_demo jupyter notebook accordingly to demonstrate the new feature. The basic steps required to generate the files should be clear from this notebook.

Sara's suggested format requires extensive meta data. This information is collected from two sources:

*	The Excel tables each group filled in during the campaign to document the sampling
*	A yaml file with entries describing the instruments, the contact person, responsible institute, etc.

If you didn't change instruments between individual drives, a single yaml file should be sufficient. You will have to modify the yaml template for your own setup, but that should be an easy step.

Hopefully, you will find this useful.

@Sara: I think it would be useful to add the coordinates of the site in the file header. These coordinates will be needed for source quantification to determine the distance between the source and the measurements.

Best wishes

Dominik

Von: Im4ca-wp1.beta <im4ca-wp1.beta-bounces at listserver.vu.nl> Im Auftrag von Sara.Defratyka
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 9. Juli 2026 17:54
An: im4ca-wp1 beta <im4ca-wp1.beta at listserver.vu.nl>; margareta hellstrom <margareta.hellstrom at mgeo.lu.se>; ute karstens <ute.karstens at mgeo.lu.se>
Betreff: [Im4ca-wp1.beta] IM4CA Romania Campaing 2026 Finalsied metadata and dataformat for in-situ measurements

Hello everyone,

finally I managed to finalise the template of metadata and dataformat. Following it by everyone will facilitate submitting IM4CA data to ICOS Carbon Portal, but also calculating emissions rates and final upscaling. On the previous, post-campaing meeting for ground teams, we came to the conclusion that ideal, one team is responsible for the quanitifcation, using well-prepared data from the ground teams. 

Some clarifications:

You can find the template in the attachment, as a txt file: "IM4CA_Romania_Campaing_in_situ_metadata_data_format".

The file name convention is: yyyy-mm-dd-ROMxxxx-seq-team.csv (details in .txt file)

Overall, it should be 1 csv file per site and sequence, merged in a zip file. Separate zip files should be made for car, drone and tall tower measurements. This csv file should include all mentioned metadata in the template plus a dataframe. Note # is used as a comment, ; as a column separation and . for decimal places.

Note also, that based on ICOS CP suggestion, dataformat is YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ and the data should be in UTC time.

We need to decide the common nomenclature for site type details (e.g., pumpjack, gas well, water tank).

System diagnostic are omitted to facilate following the data. It's also up to invidiual teams to use their instrument system dignostic to flag data. The method of flagging and correcting/calibrating data should be also desribed in the metadata.

Please, especially from the drone mass balance perspective, let me know if some crucial variables are missing (maybe some more information about the highet above the ground)?

We should be able to send around an examples datafile from LSCE next week, so it should help to follow the template. 

Deadline

First datafiles should be created until end of this month, for the ICOS CP submission. Then, ideally each team prepars the set of their .csv until September, for further quantifications and upscaling.

Submission to ICOS CP

We will ask ICOS CP for the data embargo, potentially until end of the project. In this case, we will have enough time to work on our data before they come publicly available. However, we still need to submit data to ICOS CP relatively quickly, to prove to EU that data publication chain is established.

For the submission to the ICOS CP, data should go through at list first quality control. Then, later in the project, new data versions can be added as well. 

The first submission, of some example data should be done until end of this month. It should be separate submissions of all csv files merged into indvidual zip folders for drone, cars and tall tower measurements (eg., one zip folder per measurement platform), with added a spreadsheet "spatiotemp_uploadmeta_im4ca-wp1_DRAFT". Also, some metadata report should be included there. Hopefully, this report can be made by extracting information from Deliverable 1.1.

Additionla needed actions 

1) Please also fill the spreadsheet of visited sites. It is crucial we have the informations about: site name, type, details, lat, long, sniffing, done quantification and if CH4 emissions was observed. Having this data, we are able to make a quick statistic now and how may sites were visited. It will also allow to estiamte how long it will take to calcualte emission rate from all visited sites. You can find the individual spreadsheets for each team here:

https://vu.data.surf.nl/s/emwBToabB7H94n7?dir=/Data/Romania%20campaign/OVERVIEW%20Field_collected_data

2) For now, I have details of the main data provider per team. Could I also ask you to send a details of each person involved in data colelction and processing? In this case they can be listed as contirbutors during ICOS CP submission. Please send to me: name, e-mail and ORCID ID of all contributors.

Remote data:

This template is only for in-situ measurements. As discussed, we will work on template of netcdf file for remote data separately. In the meantime, you can test those two tool to check the compatibility of your already existing files:

 <https://mcc.podaac.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/> https://mcc.podaac.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/ 

 <https://compliance.ioos.us/index.html> https://compliance.ioos.us/index.html

I hope you survived until end of this enormous email!

Take care duirng heatwaves!

Best,

-- 

Dr Sara Defratyka
orcid.org/0000-0002-9488-4518
LSCE - UVSQ
Bât 714 P1115
Orme des Merisiers
91191 Gif-sur-Yvette

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