The 2019 user satisfaction surveys for the two EU‐funded Copernicus services implemented by ECMWF show that the vast majority of users remain highly satisfied. Survey results for the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reflect the growing uptake of the services by the private sector, including within the EU. Participants also made a number of suggestions for improvements.
C3S
The 2,114 users who participated in the C3S survey gave the service an overall satisfaction rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars. Around two thirds of survey participants were based outside the EU, and around 70% were academics and researchers. A comparison of usage patterns and satisfaction ratings from 2017 to 2019 shows that uptake in the private and public sectors continues to grow. Within the EU, there is increasing private sector interest in C3S products, especially in climate reanalysis data.
Climate reanalysis data (mainly ERA5 datasets) continue to be by far the most popular with users across the board and received the highest satisfaction ratings. However, other C3S products and services, such as seasonal forecast datasets, have increased in popularity. Users also found the Copernicus User Support team (CUS), the data access mechanisms (such as the Climate Data Store API), and the extensive documentation useful.
As in previous years, the survey participants made many suggestions for improvements, particularly in relation to data retrieval from the Climate Data Store and the Toolbox. The survey results indicated that the C3S newsletter and the new CUS Forum should be used to strengthen communication with users and to help build a C3S user community. This is in line with the CUS vision of developing ‘self‐service’ user support capabilities.
C3S user feedback
The following is a sample of some of the user comments from the C3S user satisfaction survey.
“It is a tremendous international asset. Thank you and keep up the good work.”
“Excellent platform. Congratulations.”
“Many aspects are excellent and world‐class. Others are not efficient or unworkable, and need better solutions or support to make data available in practical ways.”
“The system is very nice but needs improvements.”
“The quality of data themselves is state‐of‐the‐art.”
“The API is a great tool and makes my life much easier.”
“Forum is very helpful.”
CAMS
The 120 users who participated in the CAMS survey gave the service a satisfaction rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars. Around 62% of participants were based in the European Union, and around 45% of them worked in academia/research, while 25% were based in the business sector – a higher figure than for C3S. As with C3S, interest in CAMS from the commercial sector has been increasing over the past three years, particularly within the EU.
The most popular CAMS services were information on global atmospheric composition and global reanalysis. Data access mechanisms, validation reports and product documentation were also seen as very valuable. Areas for improvement identified by users include raising user awareness of air quality products that can provide policy support for decision‐makers, such as assessment reports and local pollution forecasts.
Further information
Full 2019 C3S and CAMS user satisfaction survey reports will be available in February 2020 from https://climate.copernicus.eu/help-and-support and https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/user-support, respectively.