Madrigal is an upper atmospheric science database used by groups throughout the world. Madrigal is a robust, World Wide Web based system capable of managing and serving archival and real-time data, in a variety of formats, from a wide range of upper atmospheric science instruments. The basic data format is the same as that used by the National Science Foundation supported Coupling, Energetics and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions (CEDAR) program, which maintains a CEDAR Database at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Data files are easily exchanged between the two sites, but Madrigal has a significantly different emphasis. Data at each Madrigal site is locally controlled and can be updated at any time, but shared metadata between Madrigal sites allow searching of all Madrigal sites at once.

Data can be accessed from the Madrigal sites at Millstone Hill, USA, Arecibo, Puerto Rico, EISCAT, Norway, SRI International, USA, Cornell University, USA, Jicamarca, Peru, The Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Russia, and Wuhan Ionospheric Observatory, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. and directly, using APIs which are available for several popular programming languages. A CVS archive of all Madrigal software and documentation is available from the Open Madrigal Web site. The latest version of Madrigal may also be downloaded from there.