Management of the UK Component of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Data Distribution Centre Contract.

Tender description

Notice summary: The contractor will be expected to provide the UK's component of the IPCC Data Distribution Centre (DDC), which is currently hosted at http://www.ipcc-data.org/ Description: The contractor will serve as the coordinator of the DDC, working with managers from the other centres contributing to the DDC. The DDC managers collectively are responsible to the Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis (TGICA) for design and modification of the DDC in keeping with the overall direction provided by the TGICA to ensure that the DDC evolves and keeps up with changes in technology and standards. The contractor will be responsible for coordinating performance monitoring and reporting on the DDC to TGICA at each meeting of the Task Group. The contractor will also periodically solicit user feedback and reactions to the site, and report these regularly to the TGICA. The contractor will work with data managers at the other supporting institutions to develop proposals for improving the content, data delivery, and user support of the DDC for review and approval by the TGICA. Proposals for new DDC initiatives should be based on knowledge of the DDC managers and their home institutions, monitoring of the Web, and other information sources. The DDC and TGICA support the work of the IPCC, which is carried out by three Working Groups that focus on climate change; impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and mitigation. The website at the previous link acts as a web portal providing access to baseline and scenario data from co-operating modelling and analysis centres. It also provides technical guidelines on the selection and use of different types of data and scenarios in research and assessment. The DDC is designed primarily for climate change researchers, but materials contained on the site may also be of interest to educators, governmental and non-governmental organisations, and the general public. The DDC is overseen by the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Analysis (TGICA) and jointly managed by the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC) in the United Kingdom, the CSU World Data Centre Climate (WDCC) in Germany, and the Centre for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia University, New York, USA. This contract relates to the British component of the DDC only. Please see the ITT for more information.