HR: 1340h
AN: IN53B-1203    [Abstracts]
TI: Using Multiple Metadata Standards to Describe Climate Datasets in a Semantic Framework
AU: * Blumenthal, M B
EM: benno@iri.columbia.edu
AF: International Research Institute for Climate and Society/Columbia University, 61 Route 9W,Monell Building, Palisades, NY 10964, United States
AU: del Corral, J
EM: jdcorral@iri.columbia.edu
AF: International Research Institute for Climate and Society/Columbia University, 61 Route 9W,Monell Building, Palisades, NY 10964, United States
AU: Bell, M
EM: mbell@iri.columbia.edu
AF: International Research Institute for Climate and Society/Columbia University, 61 Route 9W,Monell Building, Palisades, NY 10964, United States
AB: The standards underlying the Semantic Web -- Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Web Ontology Language (OWL), among others -- show great promise in addressing some of the basic problems in earth science metadata. In particular they provide a single framework that allows us to describe datasets according to multiple standards, creating a more complete description than any single standard can support, and avoiding the difficult problem of creating a super-standard that can describe everything about everything. The Semantic Web standards provide a framework for explicitly describing the data models implicit in programs that display and manipulate data. They also provide a framework where multiple metadata standards can be described. Most importantly, these data models and metadata standards can be interrelated, a key step in creating interoperability, and an important step in creating a practical system. As a exercise in understanding how this framework might be used, we have created an RDF expression of the datasets and some of the metadata in the IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library. This includes concepts like datasets, units, dependent variables, and independent variables. These datasets have been provided under diverse frameworks that have varied levels of associated metadata, including netCDF, GRIB, GeoTIFF, and OpenDAP: these frameworks have some associated concepts that are common, some that are similar and some that are quite distinct. We have also created an RDF expression of a taxonomy that forms the basis of a earth data search interface. These concepts include location, time, quantity, realm, author, and institution. A series of inference engines using currently-evolving semantic web technologies are then used to infer the connections between the diverse data-oriented concepts of the data library as well as the distinctly different conceptual framework of the data search.
UR: http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/ontologies/
DE: 3394 Instruments and techniques
DE: 4594 Instruments and techniques
DE: 9810 New fields (not classifiable under other headings)
DE: 9820 Techniques applicable in three or more fields
SC: Earth and Space Science Informatics [IN]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting