Organization:
Research Title: Geosystem Databases (GEODATA)
Funding Level (millions of dollars):
| FY94 | 1.5 |
|---|---|
| FY95 | 1.4 |
| FY96 | 1.4 |
Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (CENR) Component:
(a) Subcommittee: Global Change Research Subcommittee (100%)
NSTC Committee on Fundamental Science
(b) Environmental Issue: Climate change (25%); Natural variability (75%)
(c) Research Activity: Data Management
Organizational Component:
Directorates for Geoscience and
Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Division of Atmospheric Sciences
National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22230
Point of Contact:
Jay Fein
Phone: 703-306-1527
E-Mail: jfein@nsf.gov
Research Goals:
To support the development of global change-related data and information and
their
efficient and effective use by researchers.
Research Description:
Geosystems Databases (GEODATA) consists of a sustained effort, in cooperation with
other science agencies, to assemble, document, archive and disseminate long-term
global
synoptic data needed to understand global change processes and to develop and
validate
climate system models. A major emphasis is to enable scientists to access and
manage
large, complex data sets as well as information from value-added products. A variety
of
projects are involved, including database building (directly from observations as
well as
from observations assimilated with state-of-the-art atmospheric and oceanic
models),
data
set documentation, information-system management, mass storage technology, and
intercomparisons of in situ validation information data with observations from
space.
These data projects accompany the science they serve, with explicit links to climate
analysis
and diagnostics research. Researching new techniques for managing large, complex
data
sets and standards for general archiving of value-added or derived subsets of raw
data is
also supported. GEODATA supports global change data assembly and processing
activities at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
NSF participates in the multi-agency Interagency Working Group on Data
Management
for
Global Change (IWGDMGC), whose goal is the implementation of a national Global
Change Data and Information System (GCDIS) that is consistent across agencies and
supports universities and other user communities. GEODATA is an NSF
contribution
to
the IWGDMGC program and will be carried out within the framework of that
program
Program Interfaces:
The NSF GEODATA initiative benefits U.S. and international global change
researchers,
and other users studying global change problems who require easily accessible, high
quality, well documented data and information. This initiative complements the
data
management activities of the other IWGDMGC agencies and benefits those agencies
through the high-priority global change data sets provided to public archives by
NSF-supported PI's.
Program Milestones:
(1) Become a component of a national Global Change Data and Information System
(GCDIS)
that is consistent across agencies and that supports universities and other user
communities by 1996. (2) Complete compilation of multi-decade, global climate
databases
and integrated paleoclimatic data sets covering the past 500 years of Earth history
by the
end of 1997.
Policy Payoffs:
Policy payoffs and products are of short-term and long term nature. Short-term
products
include multi-decadal global climate data set of unprecedented scope and quality
integrated
with paleoclimatic data sets having information on the past 500 years of Earth
history.
Scientists will be able to provide assessments of global changes based on the longer
and
more accurate records of environmental history found in these integrated data sets,
along
with the other individual data sets, e.g., surface marine data sets. Longer-term
payoffs
include NSF's full participation in the national GCDIS, through NCAR's data center
and
through the provision of relevant data and information from NSF-funded research
projects
to the GCDIS. The ease of identifying and accessing data and information provided
by the
GCDIS which is relevant to global change issues will stimulate and accelerate the
progress
in the science and the assessment of global environmental change.