Inconsistency of hindcast period between documentation and avialable data

Datasets and Usage C3S - Datasets and Usage
1

When accessed from the IRI data library two North American seasonal data sets (NCEP and ECCC) have long hindcast periods (starting in 1981) and this makes them especially valuable.

When accessing the data from CDS however, the hindcast period appears to be shorter - they only start in 1993. This has been tested both via the download page (no data before 1993 is shown as available) on the CDS website and by using the cdsapi to attempt to retrieve data from 1981onward (only data from 1993 is returned)

The description here: Description of the C3S seasonal multi-system - Copernicus Knowledge Base - ECMWF Confluence Wiki
says the hindcast period for ECCC is 1980-2023 and for NCEP is 1993-2016. However for NCEP the model description at Description of CFSv2-v20110310 C3S contribution - Copernicus Knowledge Base - ECMWF Confluence Wiki says it is 1981-2010

I suspect that only a subset of the hindcast of these two models has been made available through CDS for some pragmatic reason but it would be good if it could be confirmed that no hindcast data prior to 1993 is avialble for these two models and also if the documentation could be clarified.

2

Hi Nick!

this page should contain the details you are looking for:

3

Thank you for that link. I can see that with that table only the ECMWF model has any hindcast data prior to 1993.

Can I make two follow on requests in that case please?

  1. Can the documentation I link above please be made consistent with the table you provided
  2. Can you please confirm that this is a deliberate choice not to upload the hindcasts prior to 1993 which are available from the NCEP and ECCC models (from 1981 and 1980 respectively) and there are no plans to add the other data