7 June 2007

NSIDC to manage IPY data

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded funding to NSIDC to help manage scientific data taken during the International Polar Year (IPY), a time dedicated to the study of the polar regions and other frozen areas of our planet.

An internationally distributed network called the IPY Data and Information Service (IPYDIS), coordinated by NSIDC, will manage data from IPY. The NSIDC office will act as the heart and communications hub for the IPYDIS, coordinating and promoting the necessary infrastructure, practices, and international relationships to ensure preservation and sharing of IPY data. The outreach piece of IPYDIS will be DataStories. These brief articles about scientists using data will help educators bring the excitement of IPY into the classroom.

Also headquartered at NSIDC will be the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA) project. ELOKA will support the collection, preservation, exchange, and use of local observations and knowledge of the Arctic. ELOKA seeks to develop equitable means to make traditional knowledge available and useful to both local communities and international scientific researchers.

A third IPY data project involving NSIDC, the Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service (CADIS) project, will focus exclusively on Arctic IPY data. CADIS will address IPY data from the Arctic Observing Network projects, providing near-real-time data delivery, storage, discovery capability, and manipulation tools. CADIS is a collaboration between NSIDC, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and Unidata.

For more information about IPY, visit the IPY Web site at http://www.ipy.org.