IN32A-01 INVITED
Building and Sustaining International Scientific Partnerships Through Data Sharing
Understanding global environmental processes and their regional linkages has heightened the importance of full, open, and timely access to earth system science data and strong international scientific partnerships. To that end, the Unidata Program at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research has developed a growing portfolio of international outreach activities, conducted in close collaboration with academic, research and operational institutions on several continents. The overarching goals of Unidata's international activities include: • democratization of access-to and use-of data that describe the dynamic earth system • building capacity and empowering geoscientists and educators worldwide • strengthening international science partnerships for exchanging knowledge and expertise • effectuating sustainable cultural changes that recognize the benefits of data sharing, and • helping to build regional and global communities around specific geoscientific themes Using an Internet-based data sharing network, Unidata has made great strides in establishing the underpinnings of a worldwide data sharing network. To date, over 160 institutions of higher education worldwide are participating in this data sharing effort. The Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system, as it is known, was originally developed for sharing mostly atmospheric science data among U.S. institutions. It has now been extended beyond North America into a system of interconnected regional data networks encompassing Latin America, the Caribbean, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, and most recently Africa. The adoption of the IDD concept in Brazil has been so successful that Brazil now ranks second behind the U. S. in the number of institutions participating in their own regionally customized and managed data sharing network, which is dubbed the IDD-Brazil. Another noteworthy data distribution network, Antarctic IDD, is leveraging the IDD system for the benefit of the Antarctic meteorological research community. The availability of observations from polar areas is especially crucial for documenting the nature and extent of climate change, for those are the very regions that are projected to experience the most significant warming in climate simulations and as such most vulnerable from an Earth system science perspective. The democratizing and transformative effects of access to data in atmospheric science education and research cannot be overstated. A critical component of successful scientific inquiry includes learning how to collect, process, analyze, and integrate data from myriad sources, and geoscience education is uniquely suited in making science relevant by drawing connections between the dynamic Earth system and societal impacts. Continued collaborations that emerge from such data sharing efforts will result in greater understanding of a range of geoscientific problems including advances in climate change and hydrologic sciences, and weather and El Nino predictions. Moreover, they will provide a richer analysis of the evolving state of the planet. An overview of Unidata's international data sharing activities that are resulting in an organic growth of the Unidata community and increased partnership for sharing knowledge and experience will be presented.
IN32A-02 INVITED
The Integrating Role of the LBA and the LPB Programs as an Example of Cyberinfrastructures in International Scientific Collaboration
International science collaboration is a key component of research programs such as the The Large Scale Biosphere Atmosphere Interaction Program (LBA) and the La Plata Basin Project (LPB). Both are programs with crosscutting science questions permeating different areas of knowledge related to the functioning of the natural and agricultural ecosystems in the Amazon system (LBA) and the change in the hydrological, agricultural and social systems of the Plata Basin (LPB) ecosystem under natural climatic variability and climate change. Both programs are strongly related to GEWEX, CLIVAR and IGBP and are based on extensive use of data information system (LBA/LPB/DIS) with mirror sites in the US, Europe and South America. These international programs have a significant impact in building up regional scientific capabilities at all levels of education and triggered the establishment of new research groups located in remote areas of South America. The cyberinfrastructure has been fundamental to promote the integration of the research groups, and a remarkable feedback with the operational forecasting systems has been detected. The LBA/LPB should be used as examples on how to promote international scientific and operational collaboration.
IN32A-03
Building an International Geosciences Network (i-GEON) for cyberinfrastructure-based Research and Education
The Geosciences Network (GEON) project is a collaboration among multiple institutions to develop a
cyberinfrastructure (CI) platform in support of integrative geoscience research activities. Taking advantage of the
state-of-the-art information technology resources GEON researchers are building a cyberinfrastructure designed
to enable data sharing, resource discovery, semantic data integration, high-end computations and 4D
visualization in an easy-to-use web-based environment. The cyberinfrastructure in GEON is required to support
an inherently distributed system, since the scientists, who are users as well as providers of resources, are
themselves distributed. International collaborations are a natural extension of GEON; the geoscience research
requires strong international collaborations. The goals of the i-GEON activities are to collaborate with
international partners and jointly build a cyberinfrastructure for the geosciences to enable collaborative work
environments. International partners can participate in GEON efforts, establish GEON nodes at their universities,
institutes, or agencies and also contribute data and tools to the network. Via jointly run cyberinfrastructure
workshops, the GEON team also introduces students, scientists, and research professionals to the concepts of
IT-based geoscience research and education. Currently, joint activities are underway with the Chinese Academy
of Sciences in China, the GEO Grid project at AIST in Japan, and the University of Hyderabad in India (where the
activity is funded by the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum). Several other potential international
partnerships are under consideration. iGEON is open to all international partners who are interested in working
towards the goal of data sharing, managing and integration via IT-based platforms. Information about GEON and
its international activities can be found at http:www.geongrid.org/
http:www.geongrid.org/
IN32A-04
Applications For Real Time NOMADS At NCEP To Disseminate NOAA's Operational Model Data Base
A wide range of environmental information, in digital form, with metadata descriptions and supporting
infrastructure is contained in the NOAA Operational Modeling Archive Distribution System (NOMADS) and its Real
Time (RT) project prototype at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). NOMADS is now
delivering on its goal of a seamless framework, from archival to real time data dissemination for NOAA's
operational model data holdings. A process is under way to make NOMADS part of NCEP's operational
production of products. A goal is to foster collaborations among the research and education communities, value
added retailers, and public access for science and development. In the National Research Council's
"Completing the Forecast", Recommendation 3.4 states: "NOMADS should be maintained and extended to
include (a) long-term archives of the global and regional ensemble forecasting systems at their native resolution,
and (b) re-forecast datasets to facilitate post-processing."
As one of many participants of NOMADS, NCEP serves the operational model data base using data application
protocol (Open-DAP) and other services for participants to serve their data sets and users to obtain them. Using
the NCEP global ensemble data as an example, we show an Open-DAP (also known as DODS) client application
that provides a request-and-fulfill mechanism for access to the complex ensemble matrix of holdings. As an
example of the DAP service, we show a client application which accesses the Global or Regional Ensemble data
set to produce user selected weather element event probabilities. The event probabilities are easily extended
over model forecast time to show probability histograms defining the future trend of user selected events. This
approach insures an efficient use of computer resources because users transmit only the data necessary for
their tasks. Data sets are served by OPeN-DAP allowing commercial clients such as MATLAB or IDL as well as
freeware clients such as GrADS to access the NCEP real time database. We will demonstrate how users can
use NOMADS services to repackage area subsets and select levels and variables that are sent to a users
selected ftp site. NOMADS can also display plots on demand for area subsets, selected levels, time series and
selected variables.
http:nomad5.ncep.noaa.gov
IN32A-05
The GFZ ISDC Part Of Earth Science Cyberinfrastructur
The GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ) Information System and Data Center (ISDC) as part of the GFZ
information technology infrastructure is managing more than 250 very different geoscientific product types
containing more than 10 million data sets and approximately 10 TByte data volume, processed by different
national and international scientific groups. Most of the data are coming from the German CHAMP satellite as well
as from the American-German GRACE satellite mission and appropriate projects. The scientific results are
covering geodesy, geophysics and atmospheric research. More than 1300 registered users and user groups all
over the world have access to the data using the project and product integrating ISDC portal which is providing
different graphical user interfaces (GUI) and non-GUI batch processing interfaces.
This presentation is reflecting the ideas, the concepts and the realisation process in order to integrate the ISDC
in a global Earth science cyberinfrastructure. All scientific data sets managed by the ISDC are described by
corresponding metadata using the Directory Interchange Format (DIF) standard. Extending this DIF standard,
product types are described by substantial parent DIF documents whereas the scientific products consisting of
the actual data sets and the appropriate child DIF documents containing the data set specific information only.
Recently all metadata corresponding to new products types are using the DIF version 9 XML schema instead of
the DIF "ASCII text only" standard. Still almost all metadata are stored in project specific relational database
structures. In future, at least the parent DIF XML metadata documents will be managed by XML database
mechanisms. Existing XML metadata documents easily can be transferred from the ISDC/DIF XML schema to
international standardized XML schema using Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT)-based
processes. This approach could be helpful in order to integrate a standard web-based Catalog Service (WCAS)
interface into the ISDC portal realized by the Open GIS Consortium (OGC)/ISO standard conform "degree"
framework. Providing such a standard WCAS interface would open the gate to real interoperability and networking
other geoscientific information systems constructing the global Earth science cyberinfrastructure.
http:isdc.gfz-potsdam.de
IN32A-06
An Open-source Meteorological Operational System and its Installation in Portuguese- speaking Countries
CPTEC, a division of Brazil’s INPE, has been using several open-source software packages for a variety of tasks in its Data Division. Among these tools are ones traditionally used in research and educational communities such as GrADs (Grid Analysis and Display System from the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (COLA)), the Local Data Manager (LDM) and GEMPAK (from Unidata), andl operational tools such the Automatic File Distributor (AFD) that are popular among National Meteorological Services. In addition, some tools developed locally at CPTEC are also being made available as open-source packages. One package is being used to manage the data from Automatic Weather Stations that INPE operates. This system uses only open- source tools such as MySQL database, PERL scripts and Java programs for web access, and Unidata’s Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system and AFD for data delivery. All of these packages are get bundled into a low-cost and easy to install and package called the Meteorological Data Operational System. Recently, in a cooperation with the SICLIMAD project, this system has been modified for use by Portuguese- speaking countries in Africa to manage data from many Automatic Weather Stations that are being installed in these countries under SICLIMAD sponsorship. In this presentation we describe the tools included-in and and architecture-of the Meteorological Data Operational System.
IN32A-07 INVITED
VISITview -- A Package for Remote Collaborations and Training
The Virtual Institute for Satellite Integration Training (VISIT) program of the United States National Weather Service
created the VISITview software package to facilitate its teletraining activities. The use of VISITview has grown
beyond the original intent and is now used internationally for both training and collaborations using real-time
data. For example, bi-monthly, live and realtime weather briefings are conducted between the US and over a
dozen countries in the Caribbean and Central and South America using VISITview with web browsers.
This presentation will give a brief historical perspective of VISIT and VISITview, an overview of creating and
presenting material using VISITview in both a real-time, collaborative mode as well as synchronous distance
training, and a description of the various topologies and modes that VISITview supports.
http:www.ssec.wisc.edu/visitview