6. Agency Implementation

Programmatic Guidance and Milestones

The milestones that were listed in the program plan include USGCRP high-level programmatic milestones to implement the global change data and information management program and a four-phase implementation of the GCDIS. These milestones provide a general framework for the program implementation plan.

1991-1995

Support of process studies. Determine support requirements for bringing sets together in support of process research, particularly field programs and observational campaigns.
Support of data fusion and assimilation. Determine the need for combining data sets across traditional data set boundaries and the strategy for preserving analytic products such as analyzed fields from long-range weather forecasts in anticipation of the creation of integrated global data sets.
High quality research data sets. Establish a coordinated effort by the agencies to identify and set priorities for existing data sets and to develop new global change data sets, in situ as well as remotely sensed (including the interagency Pathfinder data sets). This will include continuing the development of paleoclimate and paleoecological data sets needed for global change research, as well as socioeconomic data sets relevant to human dimensions of global change.
Model input and output data review. Determine and set priorities for data sets needed for climate modeling, including existing data sets that may not be widely available. Establish mechanisms to identify and consider issues relating to model-output data.
GCDIS phase one. Initiate a framework for addressing basic issues for content and access; a directory based on, built around, or including the GCMD; prototypes at major data handling agencies; network connections between agencies and to the national research networking infrastructure; and system enhancements within agencies supporting acquisition, processing, quality controlling, cataloging, rescuing, archiving, and retrieving data.

1996-2000

Integrated satellite and in situ data sets. Develop integrated, global-scale data sets (including atmosphere, ocean, and land variables) to support diagnostic and predictive models.
GCDIS phase two. Establish full catalog interoperability between data-holding centers for a suite of global change data sets; include links to the GCMD and the guides, inventories, browse systems, and information systems of major data centers from all participating USGCRP agencies.

2001-2010

Global change historical integrated observation data. Incorporate those distributed agency holdings of instrumental observations needed for global change research, including historical and contemporary information. This is a culmination of the efforts of earlier years.
GCDIS phase three. Connect major data systems from around the globe with interoperable catalogs and inventories for selected priority global change data sets, enabling researchers to locate data internationally.

2011-2020

Global paleoclimate, paleoecological data. Complete the global archive.
GCDIS phase four. Complete full international interoperability between all major data centers and modeling centers for priority global change data sets, including support for high-speed access on an international level.

Overall Schedule Goals

The overall schedule goals follow from the priorities just outlined and from the milestones presented in the program plan. This presumes formal approval by the agencies of the program implementation plan by January 1, 1994. These are goals only; the ability of the agencies to meet these goals will be limited by mission and budget constraints. Agency-by-agency implementation milestones presented in the functional area subsections that follow represent what the agencies find possible to accomplish within known mission and budget constraints.

The schedule goals will be presented as a set of near-term interagency implementation activities followed by a description of GCDIS phases. The phases represent checkpoint snapshots of GCDIS at 5-year intervals starting with 1995.

Near-Term Interagency Implementation Activities

These are near-term, first-year (1994) activities that are needed to lay essential groundwork for progressive implementation of GCDIS functionality. These activities will be coordinated by the Content and Access Subgroups and their teams. These 1st-year efforts, once completed, will provide the basis for a major update to this program implementation plan in January 1995.

Continuation of GCMD operations (directory team);
Model-output data policy established;
First inventory of applicable agency data and information completed, and missing archive responsibilities identified;
Formation of Access Subgroup, User Advisory Group, and teams;
Agreement on 1994 GCDIS work plan;
Completion of 1-year lexicon and data dictionary study - analyze requirements and make recommendations to the data community; development of standards with data community for lexicon and data dictionary interoperability with library catalogs and bibliographic data bases (Library Subgroup);
Beginning of continual effort to identify key data sets in libraries and information centers (Library Subgroup);
Development of a prototype directory component for the GCMD that summarizes global change information collections in agency libraries and information centers (directory team and Library Subgroup);
Definition of needed inventory and order interoperability and approaches to progressive implementation (ad hoc agency inventory coordination team);
Full description by all agencies of their global change data sets and data centers in the GCMD (directory team and agencies);
Definition of guide, data dictionary, and lexicon interoperability and approaches to implementation (ad hoc guide coordination team);
Agreement by agencies on guidelines for global change data preservation (ad hoc archive coordination team);
Agreement by agencies on guidelines for common distribution formats and media (standards team); and
Definition of the priority set of agency GCDIS components, based on science priorities of global change holdings of the agencies (Access Subgroup with contacts concurrence).

GCDIS Phase I - Checkpoint 1995

Guidance on data and information priorities received from other elements of the USGCRP;
First inventory of all priority U.S. data completed;
Policy and process for peer review of data sets established;
First regular climate status-and-change summary for North America produced;
Review of implementation by the CGED;
Major update of program implementation plan, with high priority for focusing implementation efforts on priority data sets, services, and the agency elements involved (including agency- specific milestones for meeting content objectives);
Initial level of interagency coordination of user support services (e.g., user referral);
Prototype implementations of inventory functions across a set of agencies;
Prototype implementation of multiple-server configuration of GCMD;
Plan for implementation by 1997 of prototype guide function across a set of agencies;
Completion of a study and plan for implementation of the GCDIS order placement function; and
Implementation of common media for distribution of digital data.

GCDIS Phase II - Checkpoint 2000

Recommendations on priorities received from the NAS (1996);
First inventory of all priority data and information internationally completed (1996);
Individual data and information set priorities established for the total USGCRP (1996);
First regular climate status-and-change summary for entire Earth produced (1996);
Highest level of service for all essential data and information is available (1997);
Review of implementation by CGED (1997);
Continual, active, full coordination of agency user support functions (1997);
Implementation of the order placement function at a set of agencies, including prototypes of an online function (1997);
A set of agencies offer common formats and media for priority global change data sets (1997);
Implement preservation standards and practices for rescue and preservation of historic information (pre-1950) in library and information center collections (1997);
Implement electronic access to selected scientific information data bases at agency scientific/technical information distribution centers (1997);
Design and prototype (with users) a front end for library catalogs and data bases that will provide a preview capability for global change information sources (1997);
Prototype interoperability of GCMD and selected agency library catalogs (1997);
Complete extension of the directory function to include data relevant to human dimensions of global change (1998);
Next-to-highest level of service for all high-priority data and information is available (1998);
All agencies compliant with data preservation guidelines (2000);
Full implementation of catalog system functions across all agencies (as applicable for agency global change mission) (2000); and
Complete digitizing of library publications containing significant data sets or metadata held in agencies (2000).

Agency Implementation

The agencies will establish version alpha of the GCDIS consisting of their components of the GCDIS that will be available on April 1, 1994. Version alpha will be the base on which the GCDIS will grow and evolve. Agency summaries of their portions of version alpha follow. The version alpha components for each agency and the additional components that will be part of the GCDIS by April 1 of 1995 and 1996 are listed in Appendix B. Because of the evolving nature of the USGCRP and of the GCDIS, detailed projections beyond 1996 have not been given - they will be included in future updates of this implementation plan.

Department of Commerce

NOAA is the primary agency within the Department of Commerce (DOC) for GCDIS participation as both supplier and user of climate and global change data and information products. Other DOC agencies will participate in the GCDIS as their roles are better defined and as the system evolves. For example, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, through its Center for International Research, has initiated global-change, data-related, collaborative activities with the CIESIN. The Census Bureau is also attempting to increase public awareness of and use of its own data through the development of its own Internet site and other online electronic collaboration with appropriate parties.

NOAA's three National Data Centers, and the NOAA Satellite Active Archive, the NOAA Directory Services, the NOAA Library, and the NOAA Network Information Center (NIC) are agency components that will participate in GCDIS operations. As the GCDIS evolves, NOAA, through its NOAA-wide Data System Modernization, will add additional capabilities and improved interoperability for the GCDIS user community. NOAA's Data System Modernization is now in the planning stage; system implementation is expected to start in 1995 and continue through at least 2004.

Department of Defense

The DOD routinely collects environmental data globally in support of DOD operations. The DOD also conducts mission-related research into environmental processes and conditions that affect defense operations, tactics, and systems. The DOD does not have a mission requirement to archive data for civil uses. DOD data products are made available to the appropriate U.S. national archives for subsequent use by the GCDIS.

Department of Energy

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program is a DOE- sponsored, global-change-research effort designed to improve the modeling of cloud radiative forcing in general circulation models. The primary user community for ARM data is the atmospheric research community; secondary users are the broader scientific community that has interest in some of the meteorological or radiative measurements that the ARM can provide.

The ARM Archive receives and manages a broad variety of data, such as

Measurements and observations of radiative and atmospheric phenomena,
Information and documentation about the data streams that allow scientists to interpret the data,
Information about the instruments producing the data, and
General information about the ARM project.

This information comes from a variety of sources within the ARM project and from several external sources. The primary data source is the ARM Cloud and Radiative Testbed (CART), which will consist of three highly instrumented sites located worldwide. The first site, centered close to Lamont, Oklahoma, has been taking data since June 1992. Data fusion products and data quality measurement products are generated at the ARM experiment center using data from the CART sites and observations from external sources such as satellites. Information about instruments, data quality, and instrument operations comes from instrument developers, instrument mentors, site operations staff, and scientists.

Department of the Interior

As the major Federal land manager and the primary Federal agency responsible for managing the Nation's natural ecosystems, fish and wildlife, and energy and water resources, the Department of the Interior (DOI) is particularly concerned about the potential short- and long-term effects of climate and other environmental change on these lands and resources. The DOI's global change research is addressing topics such as hydrologic and geologic processes and resources, land use, land cover, biological habitats, resources, and diversity; past global change recorded in the physical, chemical, and biological record; land surface and solid Earth processes that relate to environmental change; geography and cartography; polar and arid region processes; ecosystem modeling and dynamics; and resource ethnology.

The DOI bureaus collect, maintain, analyze, and interpret short- and long-term land, water, air, biological, and other natural resource data and information in support of their missions. These efforts have always included maintenance of high-quality, long-term data sets, including cartographic, land cover, geologic, hydrologic, ecological, and biological data from both satellite- and aircraft-based remote sensing and terrestrial-based observations. The DOI will provide access to directory-level descriptions of these data (and inventory- level information where feasible) through DOI and interagency directories and clearinghouse mechanisms such as the National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse. The USGS Global Land Information System (GLIS) will be one of the primary inventory-level interfaces with the GCDIS and an access point to DOI global change data. The DOI also participates in the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) program through the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) at the USGS Earth Resources Observations Systems (EROS) Data Center (EDC), where capabilities are being developed to process, archive, and provide online information system access to EOS land- related data sets, such as those from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS).

Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA has the primary responsibility for data on environmental quality and the distribution and effects of pollutants on human and ecological health. As such, it is both a supplier and consumer of information on the environment, with a large potential for beneficial interchange with the GCDIS that goes well beyond its current role in the USGCRP.

Data and information for most of EPA's programs are stored centrally at the EPA National Computer Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The EPA Information Systems Inventory and Access EPA are key documents that are available in both hard-copy and electronic versions describing the agency's holdings. The EPA is attempting to increase public access to its holdings through the development of an Envirofacts data base, GCDIS-compatible access tools, and a public access server at Research Triangle Park.

Data and information from the focused portion of the USGCRP (such as the North American Landscape Characterization data set) will initially be made available through arrangements with other GCDIS archives. Contributing data and information from EPA's regulatory and scientific programs, not derived from the USGCRP activities, will be incorporated into the Envirofacts data base as funding becomes available and requirements are known from the USGCRP.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA provides access to Earth science data through several discipline-specific data centers and data systems. Most of these can be accessed automatically from the GCMD. These centers and systems provide various levels of service for data processing, distribution, and archiving. The numerous disciplines supported include climate, oceanography, land science, hydrology, biogeochemical dynamics, sea ice, geophysics, atmospheric dynamics, radiation budget, and human dimensions.

Researchers may access most of the systems through the Internet and dial-up lines, or they may visit hard-copy browse facilities. Data are delivered electronically or on standard media, such as 9-track magnetic tapes, 8-mm cartridges, or CD-ROMs. System capabilities allow users to search, locate, select, and order products. Searches usually can be limited by geographic area, time, or geophysical parameter. Electronic access is generally free to research users, but a fee may be charged to cover the marginal cost of filling the requests.

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsors a large and diverse research community that both uses and produces global change data and information. Although the NSF has no formal responsibilities for archiving and distributing data and information, it supports a major facility for meteorological, oceanographic, and climatology data sets at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. By and large, however, NSF-supported scientists rely on other Federal agencies for much of their data and information needs and, when appropriate, for archiving and disseminating the research products they produce.

The NSF expects its supported investigators to share with other researchers, at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the data, samples, physical collections, and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of the research project. Presently, the enforcement of this requirement varies considerably across the agency. For example, social and behavioral data sets are deposited in an archive for distribution within a year after the completion of a grant. Other discipline divisions at the NSF have no formal policies. The NSF will implement, in collaboration with other GCDIS agencies, a process by which important global change data sets produced with NSF support will be archived, managed, and disseminated for broad community use. Deciding which products are appropriate for this treatment and how the activity will be funded will involve a multilateral process among the research principal investigators, the sponsoring agency program manger, and the appropriate data center and its sponsoring agency. A general rule of thumb for funding responsibility is that the agency program manager should support those activities that are required for the research project itself, and the data center should support those that are required to serve the broader community needs.

U.S. Department of Agriculture

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has initiated several new projects to support the need to make global-change-related data and information readily available to its various user communities. This inventory includes special information required to define spatial data and models and the particular data sets required for operation of the models. Data bases inventoried are being categorized as weather data (e.g., temperature, precipitation), atmospheric data (trace gases, deposition), soils data, forest data, plant and vegetation data, animal data, pest data, hydrologic data, economic data, and more. An automated locator and directory system to house the inventory metadata is being made and soon is expected to be interoperable with the GCMD and other servers, such as the WAIS servers installed at other Federal locations.

The National Agricultural Library will continue in its major role in identifying, cataloging, and providing access to worldwide published information related to global change issues. The Current Research Information System will be available through the Internet and commercial information distribution systems, and will provide information on the status of research projects funded by the Cooperative State Research Service of the USDA.

The Evolution of the GCDIS

It is abundantly clear that the GCDIS must be built so that it can evolve. This need is driven by a number of factors. First, the USGCRP program, which the GCDIS serves, is even now changing in terms not only of its scope of research, but in terms of the relative priorities of individual research areas and of the increasing importance of assessments that have policy relevance. For example, the USGCRP focus has recently been expanded from that of climate change to also include stratospheric ozone depletion, biological diversity, forests, and desertification. Such changes will continue as the USGCRP itself evolves.

Second, from the time when data management was barely an afterthought for many programs and projects, its importance has rapidly grown in nearly all areas of endeavor. This very growth, coupled with the broad scope of the USGCRP, means that the GCDIS must evolve to stay compatible with developments in a wide range of fields over which it has almost no control. Examples are Federal geographic standards development, government information locator systems, library search-and-retrieval standards, international systems, health- and other human-dimension-related data base developments.

Third, the technology which the GCDIS will have to use to meet its users' needs is rapidly changing. This change is increasingly in response to economic imperatives and technical needs largely outside the USGCRP. Examples include developments in such major areas as high-performance computing, data superhighways, and commercial communications and cable systems.

To be able to evolve as necessary, the GCDIS will do the following:

Plan the system so that it is capable of interfacing with other systems having a wide range of capabilities. The GCDIS will be inclusive as opposed to exclusive in terms of only being able to serve users in narrowly defined modes. The levels of service defined for access in Chapter 5 are an example of this approach.
Establish working relationships with other groups, such as the FGDC and the library community, to help guide the evolution.
Implement the user coordination system described on page 14 to provide user guidance as to necessary changes.
Conduct pilot demonstrations in areas where interfaces with new user communities are needed, such as the library community, or new technical capabilities, such as the NREN.

As an example of evolution in the program, assessments and policy questions will increasingly require data and information from the biological, social, and economic sciences. These biological and human dimension data sets will largely result from investigations funded externally to the USGCRP. They will range from process research results to operational modeling and monitoring and will represent basic science, as well as regulatory and resource management information. Considerable local as well as Federal data and information are anticipated. As the GCDIS evolves, it will be increasingly challenged to develop the necessary infrastructure (both technical and political) to access and use these disparate data and information in USGCRP assessments.

Initially, elements of socioeconomic data will be held in the Socioeconomic Data Center (SEDAC) funded through the EOSDIS. The SEDAC will be part of the EOSDIS network, and its data and information will be available through the EOSDIS. In addition to the data and information that the SEDAC will hold directly, an Information Cooperative has been organized by CIESIN to arrange for access to data and information held by institutions throughout the world. The SEDAC will also provide pointers to these relevant data sets. This follows the general GCDIS model of a responsible data center for a particular type of information and a uniform policy for data distribution and charging.

In addition to the SEDAC and CIESIN Information Cooperative, USGCRP member agencies will directly provide important biological and socioeconomic data and information, of appropriate granularity, through their individual implementations of the GCDIS. For example, programs such as the EPA Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program, the DOI Biological Survey, and the NOAA Coastwatch will develop important data and information on biological resources that will have applicability to USGCRP analyses. Including these data and information in the GCDIS will proceed in an evolutionary manner.

These programs are typical of many Federal and State programs outside the USGCRP that have data needed by the USGCRP. Being outside, many have very limited funding for making such data available for USGCRP use and also may require such special administrative arrangements as memoranda of understanding. The need for developing GCDIS access to such data sets that were not developed by the USGCRP itself is identified as a special issue in Appendix A.

Go back to Chapter 5. Access System Implementation by Functional Areas

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