HR: 0800h
AN: SF31A-0702    [Abstracts]
TI: EARTH SYSTEM ATLAS: A Platform for Access to Peer-Reviewed Information about process and change in the Earth System
AU: * Sahagian, D
EM: dork.sahagian@lehigh.edu
AF: Lehigh University, 31 Williams Dr., Bethlehem, PA 18015 United States
AU: Prentice, C
EM: colin.prentice@bristol.ac.uk
AF: University of Bristol, Dept. of Earth Sci., Wills Memorial Bldg., Bristol, BS8 1RJ United Kingdom
AB: A great deal of time, effort and resources have been expended on global change research to date, but dissemination and visualization of the key pertinent data sets has been problematical. Toward that end, we are constructing an Earth System Atlas which will serve as a single compendium describing the state of the art in our understanding of the Earth system and how it has responded to and is likely to respond to natural and anthropogenic perturbations. The Atlas is an interactive web-based system of data bases and data manipulation tools and so is much more than a collection of pre-made maps posted on the web. It represents a tool for assembling, manipulating, and displaying specific data as selected and customized by the user. Maps are created "on the fly" according to user-specified instructions. The information contained in the Atlas represents the growing body of data assembled by the broader Earth system research community, and can be displayed in the form of maps and time series of the various relevant parameters that drive and are driven by changes in the Earth system at various time scales. The Atlas is designed to display the information assembled by the global change research community in the form of maps and time series of all the relevant parameters that drive or are driven by changes in the Earth System at various time scales. This will serve to provide existing data to the community, but also will help to highlight data gaps that may hinder our understanding of critical components of the Earth system. This new approach to handling Earth system data is unique in several ways. First and foremost, data must be peer-reviewed. Further, it is designed to draw on the expertise and products of extensive international research networks rather than on a limited number of projects or institutions. It provides explanatory explanations targeted to the user's needs, and the display of maps and time series can be customize by the user. In general, the Atlas is designed provide the research community with a new opportunity for data observation and manipulation, enabling new scientific discoveries in the coming years. An initial prototype of the Atlas has been developed and can be manipulated in real time.
UR: http://earthsystematlas.sr.unh.edu
DE: 6309 Decision making under uncertainty
DE: 6620 Science policy
DE: 1699 General or miscellaneous
DE: 1615 Biogeochemical processes (4805)
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
SC: Special Focus: Advances in Data Acquisition, Management, Analysis and Display [SF]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting