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The workshop was sponsored by the U.S. Global Change Research Program and hosted by the U.S. Geological Survey in Fort Collins, Colorado. A majority of the participants were from government data archive centers. There was a combination of plenary and breakout sessions.
Some highlights follow.
Francis Bretherton set the stage as the keynote speaker and addressed the importance of data to scientists. He used the metaphor of a tree with the roots being observations and data collection, the trunk acting as validation, synthesis of core products, archive (full and open access), branches as the reprocessing, distribution, value-added decentralized, the leaves serving as end user; government agencies, policy makers, scientists, public and private stakeholders.
Tom Holm, Earth Resources Observation Systems (EROS), Sioux Falls, SD, presented the activities at EROS. The EROS is the National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive, which contains the largest Landsat data archive. The EROS archive of Landsat data dates back to 1972. They have archived AVHRR datasets since 1986. They also serve the function of a DAAC for NASA's Earth Observing System.
Tom Barclay, Microsoft Research gave an interesting presentation on their partnership with the USGS. Microsoft has developed the TerraServer in collaboration with the USGS. A CRADA was signed between USGS and Microsoft for the TerraServer project. The TerraServer has five terabytes of satellite and aerial images of urban areas; compressed to one terabyte of database data. The daily average of data for this project is 59 GB/day. The metadata are stored in a what they call the OriginalMetaData table which contains about 100 fields. SOAP is used for discovery and exchange of information in the distributed environment. For additional information, see the TerraServer hotlink. There are two people at Microsoft who work on this project.
Dave Jones, previously with NBC, Washington, DC, currently President and CEO of StormCenter.Com, gave a flashy talk (lots of great videos and graphics) based on what the weather industry will be in 2020. During his time at NBC a survey was taken that indicated 93% of the viewers watching the news watched for the weather news. The future holds higher resolution data (1km datasets), personalized forecasts, more observations around the globe.
Erik Kihn, NGDC, gave a general talk about NGDC and about the phenomenal amount of data that is being archived and accessed. NASA's EOS exceeds 1TB/day. CERN exceeds 20TB/day. He predicted the data warehouse approach is ending with the data mart approach taking over. (IMHO, Erik will be a good contact and collaborator for metadata issues)
Tom Stohlgren, Ecologist, USGS/Colorado State University, suggested the need to reset priorities. Climate data, for example, contain poor temps, poor precip readings and the stations do not agree. Climate models contain poor resolution, poor regional trends and there are major disagreements among the models. He indicated that modelers should be forced to state all model assumptions and limitations, and model validation data. The Canadian Climate Model and the model topography and Hadley Model do not agree, which leads to limiting the scientists' confidence.
He asserted there are poor predictive capabilities, especially for extreme events and suggested the need for research to include paleoecology data, improved monitoring and predictions and a need for interdisciplinary focus on vulnerabilities. He provided the example of the U.S. paying 134B/year on invasive species but the information is not being considered in the context of climate models. Stohlgren talked about people being the most invasive species coupled with roads, city, recreation which created environmental effects with air quality, watershed, habitat fragmentation and transport of invasive species.
There were several other talks and breakout sessions, which will be available at the URL cited at the beginning of this report. The repeated themes were based on the need to move beyond the current audience and to plan to cater to a broader audience. We must consider the needs of the stakeholders; scientists, agencies, private sector and policy makers. Ease of access and use of the data are central to the needs. This translates into creating metadata that is understandable and can be used by the broader audience.
Some of the closing summary comments included:
New Techniques Emerging
Data Session:
Data to Information:
Linda Miller , Unidata External Liaison
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307-3000
303 497-8646 fax: 303-497-8690
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