UniLoon is the cloud-based platform for geoscience.
Unidata's Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system has been instrumental in moving geoscience data to U.S. universities for nearly 20 years, and hard-wired networks have played an important role in the growth of data-driven scientific discovery. But moving beyond the wired world is the next important step for cyberinfrastructure, which is why Unidata is proud to announce a new partnership between Unidata, Google, and select U.S. universities to bring truly cloud-based services to the geoscience community.
Building on Google's "Project Loon," Unidata is introducing the UniLoon Cloud Platform.
The Unidata Program Center is pleased to welcome Inken Purvis to our staff. Inken joined us as an Administrative Assistant on March 2, 2015; she'll be the Program Center's new Travel Coordinator, among other administrative duties.
Prior to coming to the UPC, Inken has worked in a variety of marketing and administrative roles in the financial services, publishing, and (most recently) pharmaceutical sectors. Her experience doing meeting support, event planning, and travel arrangement fills an obvious need here at the Program Center, but that's just a beginning.
The Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) version 5.1 is available now. This release is recommended for all users. Read on for a list of new features and problems resolved in this release.
The NetCDF-Java/Common Data Model (CDM) library version 4.5.5 was released on March 6, 2015. The development team recommends this upgrade for anyone using the CDM. (THREDDS Data Server (TDS) version 4.5.5 is also available as a beta-test release.)
Version 4.5.5 includes serveral bug fixes and improvements. Read on for details.
The Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University (CSU) has a long history of research and education in all aspects of the atmospheric sciences. Faculty, students, and staff use a wide variety of datasets in their research and teaching, from numerical models to gridded reanalyses to radar and satellite observations to measurements collected in the field and lab. However, the students in the department recognized issues that were preventing these large datasets from being used to their full potential.
With a grant from the Unidata Community Equipment Awards program, along with a grant from the College of Engineering, the CSU Department of Atmospheric Science acquired a data storage server that makes many of these data sources readily and easily accessible to students.
Note to the Unidata community: Space at this Regional Workshop is still available, but register soon!
The University of South Florida, the Florida Institute of Technology, and the West Central Florida Chapter of the American Meteorological Society are pleased to sponsor and host a Unidata Regional Workshop on April 10-12, 2015 (Friday through Sunday). Unidata Program Center staff will provide introductory and advanced training in the use of Unidata's Integrated Data Viewer (IDV), the Repository for Archiving, Managing and Accessing Diverse Data (RAMADDA), and other Unidata data and tools. In addition to the formal training sessions, there will be informal opportunities to interact with the UPC staff. Attendees are encouraged to "bring" their own data (preferably accessible from a remote access server) for exploration during the workshop.
As many in the Unidata community are aware, on January 14, 2015 the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) began producing Global Forecast System (GFS) model output with 0.25-degree resolution for use in weather forecasting operations. This output is now available to be added to the Unidata Internet Data Distribution (IDD) system's CONDUIT data stream.
We would like to better understand the level of interest in receiving this model output among Unidata community members. We are also soliciting information on Unidata sites' capacity to receive this volume of data via the CONDUIT "push" mechanism. We have created a short online questionnaire to collect community input; read on for details.
