Handling Charges for ECMWF Data Archive

The costing algorithm version below was introduced on 10/April/2008. ( See previous version ).

• changes
• basic concepts
• costing algorithm
• shipping charge - media
• minimum charge
• discounts
• interpolation

Changes in brief

This change reduces the costs of orders in the following areas:

Data volume charge (alpha) reduced to £30 from £50 per 100 MB;
Monthly charge (gamma) for all data sets except those with a monthly charge of £5 are halved.

Basic concepts

A fee (in pounds sterling, Euros, US-Dollars, Yen or any negotiable currency) will be charged to cover the data extraction and data interpolation (if required), the provision of tapes/cartridges, the processing of the request, and the despatch to the user by air mail.  These charges are "marginal costs" and ECMWF does not accept any liability for errors or omission in the data, or for any loss or damage arising from its use.  However, users may report back to ECMWF any problems they encounter reading or using the data. 

• the time interval;
• sub-areas based on regular rectangular areas with edges along latitude and longitude lines (such areas will be processed as minimum required areas, extra values outside the area specified may be supplied);
• fields selected by parameter and (if appropriate) level;
• representation and resolution except for the basic 2.5 degree data sets.

Algorithm

To ensure that the fee charged reflects reasonably the processing required, the following formula is used:

COST = Volume factor charge + Time factor charge + Shipping charge

Volume factor charge= alpha  * V* (1 + beta)

where:

• alpha * V covers the cost of providing tapes/cartridges, handling, mail and basic extraction
• alpha * beta * V covers the processing costs required to interpolate data and/or to convert from spectral to grid point

where:

• alpha is the "unit cost" (currently £30)
  
• V =(Volume in bytes)/(1024*1024) (real number)
  
• beta is :
  • 0 if interpolation is NOT required
  • 0.2 if interpolation IS required

Time factor charge=gamma * D

where :

• gamma * D covers the processing costs involved in accessing data within the archive; this cost is greater for the high resolution data than for the basic data set, reflecting the magnitudes of the volumes of those data within the archive.

where :

• D=(Number of requested days)/31 (real number)
• gamma is :
• £15 for all operational data sets except those listed below
• £5 for all ECMWF Re-analysis (ERA-15, ERA-40 and ERA Interim), TOGA, operational daily wave data sets and operational monthly mean data sets.
• £0 for all seasonal project data sets
  
  

Shipping charge:

• Data will be written to one of the currently available media as one or more archive files.
• If the volume of your order is more than 1 GB data will be delivered only on one of the currently available removable media and a shipping charge of 20 GBP will be applied.
• If the volume of your order is less than 1 GB you may ask for the data to be delivered by one of the currently available internet transfer options and the shipping charge will not be applied.
  
  

• orders in excess of £1,000
  15% of that part of the normal charge which exceeds £1,000
• orders in excess of £5,000
  £600 plus 25% of that part of the normal charge which exceeds £5,000
• orders in excess of £10,000
  £1,850 plus 35% of that part of the normal charge which exceeds £10,000

Interpolation

• generating grid point data from spherical harmonic coefficients, or
• converting Gaussian grid point data to regular latitude/ longitude, or
• converting grid point data to any resolution other than that used to store the data within the archive.