HR: 1340h
AN: IN23A-1204    [Abstracts]
TI: Spatial Tools for a Round Planet
AU: * Swick, R
EM: swick@nsidc.org
AF: National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 United States
AU: Knowles, K
EM: knowlesk@nsidc.org
AF: National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 United States
AB: For many geophysical disciplines it is sufficient, and often expedient, to treat the Earth as a Cartesian plane, at least for data search and order purposes. Unfortunately the Earth is round and the majority of Earth Science data is being gathered by satellite born sensors circling the Earth in polar orbits. As the number of satellite born sensors increases, and the resolution of those sensors increases, the shear volume of the available data has made the flat Earth paradigm increasingly problematic. Cryospheric Science is one discipline that is ill-served by the flat Earth paradigm so the National Snow and Ice Data Center has been working with the sphere for quite some time. We have found that treating the Earth as a sphere significantly increases spatial search accuracy for many data types and consequently can be of equal, or even greater, benefit to scientists working in the tropics and mid-latitudes. This poster describes a number of tools we have developed to make working with the sphere easier on both sides (client and server) of data search and order systems.
UR: http://geospatialmethods.org
DE: 9820 Techniques applicable in three or more fields
SC: Earth and Space Science Informatics [IN]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005