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Blast from the Past
The winter of 1913/14 was Denver's snowiest on record.
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IDV Interactive Case Studies |
Invariably, discussion of weather-related case studies results in stimulating conversation in Unidata-related forums. Their value to learning and research endeavors is indisputable, and yet, their development languished for a couple of years because of insufficient resources. Thinking in tandem Directors Mohan Ramamurthy (Unidata) and Tim Spangler (COMET) thought that void ought to be filled but with a new approach. Case study datasets have traditionally been a collection of static datasets, often in the same data format and location. Their vision was to leverage and bring together the strengths of the two UCAR programs to develop a new generation of case studies that are dynamic, integrated, and interactive. These case studies will include not only datasets of weather events, but they will, where appropriate, integrate relevant educational modules. In addition, they will be “living” or dynamic, allowing for the community to augment and add value to existing case studies by contributing related observations, analyses, educational, curricular and multimedia materials, and other views on the case. An important element of that vision is to build an easy to use framework in which community members can develop and build on future case studies.
This display compares Relative Vorticity in the Atlantic basin for the year 2005 (left panel) to climatology (1971-2001, and in right panel) and displays the difference of the two in the center panel. The green box illustrates the Cape Verde region of hurricane genesis and highlights the difference in that region from 2005 and climatological values.
(click on image to enlarge) |
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This pilot project is funded internally by the UCAR Office of Program Director’s office. Participants come from Unidata, COMET and UNC-Charlotte. Unidata staff provide many of the datasets, technologies, support and leadership. COMET is making available pertinent learning modules from its vast library of educational materials in formats and size that are easily accessible via the IDV. The UNC-Charlotte team, Dr. Brian Etherton, faculty advisor, and Ms. Shelly Holmberg, graduate student, is creating the first series of case studies and the scientific write ups associated with them.
Specifically, this project will highlight some of the functionality of the IDV, THREDDS, and other Unidata technologies. The IDV will be used to view and integrate catalogs and disparate data from distributed servers from a single application. Other technologies being used are the THREDDS servers and cataloging service, ADDE (Abstract Distributed Data Environment) servers, OPeNDAP (Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol) servers, HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), and (WMS) Web Map Servers. Another technology being developed is the TDR (THREDDS Data Repository) which will allow users to contribute back either additional datasets relevant to the case study, curriculum, or their own perspectives of an event, thus allowing for a dynamic case study that can grow and be enriched over time.
The scope of the pilot project is to produce a series of three educational modules: "2005 Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Season" with a climatological focus; "Hurricane Katrina" module with a societal impacts focus; and "Hurricane Wilma" module with a meteorological focus.
To achieve this goal, Unidata has gathered data, created catalogs, and coordinated the activity. On his side, Brian is teaching a course on Katrina and will be incorporating societal impacts information as well as atmospheric science into the course materials. This will help demonstrate a multi-discipline, multi-format, data rich case study.
The first public exposure to the project was rolled out at the AMS 87th Annual Meeting during the 16th Symposium on Education, where Shelley brought participants in this session up to date on the project during an outstanding presentation, co-authored by Brian Etherton, and Jeff Weber, the project’s technical lead, from the UPC. |
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Welcome, Sean Arms |
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Sean Arms, University of Oklahoma graduate student, is the first ever Student Representative to a Unidata governing committee.
The action follows what was arguably one of the most successful Unidata Users Workshops and was a suggestion made during the panel discussion and wrap-up on the final day of the workshop. Sean's selection came after a competitive process that saw the nomination of six highly-qualified students.
Sean uses several Unidata software packages in his daily life as a grad student that include GEMPAK, IDV, and netCDF. In addtion, he will be joining the University's HOOT group this month. This linkage will be useful as the Oklahoma Weather Laboratory students and their HOOT efforts are one of Unidata's largest student user groups, and can provide a lot of feedback to Unidata efforts. Sean's leadership abilities were recognized by his peers during the Unidata Workshop this summer, as he arranged a couple of social activities that included a dinner for the graduate students attending while encouraging them to participate in the official workshop brainstorming sessions held at the end of each day. Because of this initiative, Sean was selected by the other graduate students, as well as members of the Users Committee, to sit on a panel as the graduate student representative during an open forum discussion that was held on the last day of the workshop.
Sean's two-year appointment as the student representative to the Users Committee is a historic moment in Unidata's nearly 25-year history. |
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News Briefs |
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AGU Joint Session: Unidata encourages your participation in the Spring 2007 AGU Joint Assembly that will be held in Acapulco, Mexico on 22-25 May, 2007.
The session, JA07/IN03, entitled: "Earth and Space Science Cyberinfrastructures: Data, Tools, Distribution, and Forecast Systems" is being jointly convened by Dr. Elen Cutrim (Western Michigan University), Waldenio Gambi de. Almeida, (CPTEC/INPE), Luis Farfan (CICESE), Glenn Rutledge (NOAA/NCDC), and Tom Yoksas, (UCAR/Unidata). Its purpose is to foster development of international research and education collaborations focused on Earth and Space Science Informatics in the Americas. Several other sessions in the Earth and Space Science Informatics section may also interest members of the Unidata community,
Here are some links to assist you in your submittal process: AGU HomePage, Programs and Abstracts , and Abstract Submission. As noted in the Programs and Abstracts web page, the deadline for abstract submission is March 1, 2007 at 2359 UTC, and the AGU allows no exceptions to the deadline.
 DeSouza Award: James T. Moore.was posthumously awarded the Unidata Users Committee Russell L. Desouza award at the 87th Annual AMS meeting in San Antonio. Unidata Director, Mohan Ramamurthy opened the presentation ceremony by describing Jim's service to Unidata as a conscientious member and pun maker of its governing committees. Scott Rochette (SUNY-Brockport) who presently is serving on the Users Committee, received the award on behalf of Kathy Moore (see image, right), Jim's wife. Scott was Jim's graduate student at St. Louis University, and his remarks reflected the warm relationship that he, and most of Jim's students, experienced while studying with him.
GOES 10: GOES-10 data has been incorporated into the existing Unidata-Wisconsin data feed GOES-East image composites which are currently being distributed to 146 reporting systems at 92 sites. Any of the 392 IDD installations at 209 sites have access to this data. Since this is a measure of reporting sites, the actual number is likely to be higher. The project uses equipment surplussed by NCAR/UCAR and the Unidata community (e.g., retired USAN satellite dish from NCAR/SCD; TeraScan (tm) satellite receiver (SeaSpace Inc.) from NCAR/RAL; PC satellite ingest card from the Weather Underground, Inc., etc.), and McIDAS SDI software licensed from the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Watch for more information on this development in the news section on the Unidata home page in the near future. The Visible Image at left contains coverage elements of both GOES-East and GOES-10. |
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Software Updates |
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GEMPAK: is now in Release 5.9.4, and version 5.10.1 is slated for release soon.
Important new features in 5.9.4 include the addition of a decoder for the USPLN lightning data via Embry Riddle, support for Meteosat-8 navigation, the ability to set text size independently for each parameter in surface station model plots, increased maxmimum grid sizes for calculations and display, transition of grid library routines from Fortran to C.
Look for the following features in 5.10.1: new ensemble probability functions ENS_CPRB and ENS_CVAL, contour labeling enhanced to support text strings, new daylight savings time rules for 2007, increased maximum grid sizes again, the maximum grid size limit has been eliminated from several programs.
IDV: Developers announced a new release of the Integrated Data Viewer (2.1) download. A few of the new 2.1 release features include level subsetting for grids, improved KML/KMZ support, a plugin creator for customization, and performance enhancements. Please see the release notes for a complete list of new features.
NetCDF: NetCDF-3.6.2 is available in beta6. This will be the final beta release of NetCDF-3.6.2. It is available as a gzipped tar file or compressed tar file. (See also the beta release of the documentation). This release fixes some minor bugs, and supports shared libraries. |
Please send comments to support-eletter@unidata.ucar.edu
The CommuniteE-letter is produced by editor, Jo Hansen, and production manager, Sandra Petrie |
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