Updated: 03 Jun 2025



All ECVT members and PIs are asked to establish contact with the ESA Data Centre: nadirteam@nilu.no

These pages repeat some content from the ECVT Confluence pages and include additional database-specific information.

Data Sharing Protocol
All users must sign the Data sharing agreement protocol Access to preliminary and final Cal/Val data from the teams, as well as to other EVDC data and tools, is granted only to those who have signed this protocol.

Data Submission Requirement
All campaign data resulting from the EarthCARE campaigns and related projects contributing to ESA validation activities must be uploaded to the EVDC archive.

Metadata Standardisation
To avoid misunderstandings or misinterpretations when working with different datasets, ECVT members and data submitters are expected to standardise metadata according to the GEOMS (Generic Earth Observation Metadata Standard).
To support this, GEOMS tools and templates are available. If these are insufficient, PIs/co-Is may request support from the EVDC team.

Guidance for File Creation
A set of online resources for creating GEOMS-compliant files is available under CREATING GEOMS FILES.

Timely Submission of Preliminary Data
Each Cal/Val team or data network is expected to share and exchange their campaign data within ECVT as early as possible—ideally right after a flight or daily measurement.
Preliminary data should be submitted to the EarthCARE Cal/Val area in EVDC-compatible formats that are fully documented, self-descriptive, and compliant with GEOMS.
Exceptions to this format and metadata requirement will be considered only when conversion is unfeasible, even with EVDC support.


Upload of Golden Dataset

Data from the selected days of the "Golden Dataset" should be uploaded to EVDC as soon as possible after preliminary analysis.

Data submitters should log in with their EVDC-NADIR credentials and upload data using one of the following methods:

1) EVDC web using the graphical upload tool

or

2) via SFTP to the Unix server upload.nilu.no, placing (non-formatted, if needed) data in the directory:
/viper/nadir/evdc/incoming/

Data users and campaign teams will find the preliminary data here:
/viper/nadir/projects/earthcare/golden_dataset/preliminary_data/


EVDC login info: (updated 2024-01-21)


FAQ: (updated 2024-01-21)



Data upload via web API:

Visit https://evdc.esa.int/upload/ --> select file from you local machine and press "submit file" button. Only GEOMS formatted data files are supported in the web API.


Data upload via blind-drop:

From a terminal: Log in to machine upload.nilu.no with your evdc account using sftp and put data in the "blind-drop" folder named /viper/nadir/evdc/incoming/ (EVDC team will monitor this area and contact you after you have added files)


Data upload directly to a campaign folder:

From a terminal: Log in to machine upload.nilu.no with your evdc account using sftp and put data in the "ECVT" folder named /viper/nadir/projects/earthcare/ in a suitable folder. (EVDC team will monitor this area and contact you after you have added files. Users are allowed to create their own directories)


Data download via web pages:

Visit https://evdc.esa.int and log in to the portal (upper right corner) with your provided user name and password.

Goto "Search Cal/Val Data" https://evdc.esa.int/search/ and select from dropdown menu "Other" --> "Framwork" = EARTHCARE. (Note that the defualt date is set to the 3 last months in the "Time and Location" box).

Scroll down and select "Submit".


Data download directly from a campaign folder:

From a terminal: Log in to machine download.nilu.no with your evdc account using sftp and change (cd) to the "ECVT" folder named /viper/nadir/projects/earthcare/campaigns/ Users are allowed to list and download all data in the subfolder of this area.