Frequently asked questions

On this page:

Something does not work at your website, who should I contact?

Please use the feedback form and we will get back to you.

Do I need to register for downloading ICOS data?

No, you can download data without personal data is needed. But you will have to accept the ICOS data license every time you download data files.

Why should I register at ICOS Carbon Portal?

First of all, we want to make our users' experience as smooth as possible – and this is best supported by storing settings and choices in a user profile. Secondly, we like to know our users!

For all users the option of accepting the ICOS data license makes downloading ICOS data a breeze after logging in. Soon we will also offer you the option to receive an email on the registered address when data you have downloaded before receives an update.

For ICOS data suppliers like station Principle Investigators, the registration is required to authorize certain functions, like data upload, use of the labelling app etc.

In the future the linking of your account with ORCID will allow us to push your contributions and ICOS related publication to your ORCID profile. We will also list your most recent uploads and queries there for later reference.

Please note that all information in your account is strictly personal and secure. At any time you can have all the information stored there removed. 

How can I register as user?

Please go to https://cpauth.icos-cp.eu/login/. You can either login using your Edugain credentials (tab: University sign in), Facebook or ORCID login (tab: Social sign in), or a email/password combination. In the latter case you first should create an account using the Create account/forgot password tab on this page.

I've created a nice figure using the visualization tools in the Portal. Is it OK to use this in my seminar presentation or in a report?

Yes, in principle that is fine – just make sure that you provide the correct citation and respect the ICOS data license (CC BY).

Why is it taking so long to set up the Carbon Portal?

ICOS is dedicated to reliable, long-term and high precision measurements. Climate change is a long-term issue. Changes in the environment are small and short-term variability is large so measurements need to be very precise and averaged over a long time. Setting up the measurements in a coherent, partly already existing, network, while ensuring that all use the same methods, and testing the station performance for an extended time period (6 months) before officially registering the station as ICOS station is a long process. However, we expect that in the next year most stations will have gone through the process and will be registered!

What is so special about FAIR data?

FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. The so called FAIR principle will help us to make the ICOS data available to more users, be it humans or machines. By following the FAIR principles we ensure that also in the long run ICOS data will remain available, can be found, understood and (re-)used by having the right metadata to go with it. You can read more at https://www.force11.org/fairprinciples/ or https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201618.

My question is not listed here, how can I get help?

Please use the feedback form. We will try to answer your question within 1-2 working days.