Step 1 - Acknowledge according to dataset licence

When using any of the data published on the Climate Data Store (CDS), you agree to abide to the terms and conditions of the dataset’s licence agreement. The agreement defines the legal requirements regarding the use, adaptation, and distribution of the data.

In practical terms, you will be asked to agree to the applicable licence agreement(s) when you download the data from the CDS. It is highly recommended to download the licence agreement and save it in the same location as the data itself. This ensures that you will have access to the licence agreement at all times.

When using the data and publishing your work, you are asked to state the expected attribution within the acknowledgement section of your publication.

For datasets that have been generated under the framework of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), you shall follow the rules outlined in the Licence to Use Copernicus Products (v 1.2) . More specifically, Clause 5 documents the attribution terms and conditions of Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) data. It is, thus, a legal requirement to credit the respective Copernicus service.

Step 2 - Cite each dataset version used

Citing a dataset correctly is just as important as citing articles, books, images and websites - each dataset is a source of evidence to support your argument. With a data citation, users will credit the creators and contributors of the dataset, provide information on where to find the dataset, support reproducibility and validation of results, and enhance traceability of the data. Adding to the benefits for the data users, crediting the individual creators of a dataset contributes to the list of publication for individuals.

Considering the above, we ask you to cite each dataset version you have used, like you would cite other sources, as part of the bibliography in your publication. You will find the information on how to cite and reference the dataset on the CDS catalogue entry (see Citation under References, when available otherwise please contact copernicus-support@ecmwf.int) .

Please keep in mind, whenever you use a different version, you should cite the respective version. The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) of the citation will ensure that users will have access to the data and associated metadata.

Step 3 - Reference the dataset used

Following the mandatory attribution of the dataset as described in the licence agreement, we ask you to provide information on the location of the dataset. To ensure the traceability of data and their associated information, users are encouraged to refer specifically to the dataset(s) used by citing the authors of the dataset(s) in the following form: 

<last name of first author> et al. (<Year of publication>)

See Step 2 for author's name.