The Unidata Seminar
Series is a venue for Unidata Program Center staff
and other invited speakers to highlight important activities
of relevance taking place within the Unidata Community.
Webcasts for most seminars are available. See the Calendar of Events to find the
next scheduled Unidata seminar.
2016 Russell L. DeSouza Award Presentation and SeminarDaryl HerzmannSeptember 29, 2016 Foothills Lab 2, Room 1001 Seminar Video: YouTube (and below) Daryl Herzmann of Iowa State University is the recipient of Unidata's 2016 Russell L. DeSouza Award. In this video from 26 September 2016, he is presented with the award and presents a talk describing his association with the Unidata program over the years. |
2106 Unidata Summer Internship End-of-Summer SeminarAlex Haberlie and Kristen PozsonyiJuly 29, 2016 UCAR Foothills Lab, Building 2, Room #1001 Seminar Video: YouTube (and below) Kristen Pozsonyi's presentation slides Alex Haberlie's presentation slides The Unidata Program Center's summer student interns Alex Haberlie and Kristen Pozsonyi presented the results of their summer projects to the UPC staff on July 29, 2016. The Unidata Summer Internships offer undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to work with Unidata software engineers and scientists on projects drawn from a wide variety of areas in the atmospheric and computational sciences. Read this blog post for a summary of Kristen and Alex's projects. |
2015 Russell L. DeSouza Award Presentation and SeminarScott JacobsOctober 1, 2015 UCAR Center Green building 1, Main Auditorium Seminar Video: YouTube (and below) Scott Jacobs of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction was awarded the 2015 Russell L. DeSouza Award by the Unidata Users committee. He attended the October 2015 joint Users and Strategic Advisory Committee meeting, during which he received the award certficate and gave a presentation titled "A Brief History of GEMPAK..." |
2105 Unidata Summer Internship End-of-Summer SeminarJosh ClarkJuly 31, 2015 UCAR Foothills Lab, Building 2, Room #1001 Seminar Video: YouTube (and below) The Unidata Program Center's summer student intern Josh Clark presented the results of his summer projects to the UPC staff on July 31, 2015. The Unidata Summer Internships offer undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to work with Unidata software engineers and scientists on projects drawn from a wide variety of areas in the atmospheric and computational sciences. |
2014 Russell L. DeSouza Award Presentation and SeminarRich Signell, U.S. Geological SurveySeptember 15, 2014 UCAR Foothills Lab, Building 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF Seminar Video: YouTube (and below) Dr. Richad P. Signell of the U.S. Geological Survey was awarded the 2014 Russell L. DeSouza Award by the Unidata Users committee. He attended the September 2014 Users Committee meeting, during which he received the award certficate and gave a presentation titled "Ocean, Atmosphere & Climate Model Assessment for Everyone." |
2104 Unidata Summer Internship End-of-Summer SeminarShawn Cheeks, Florita RodriguezJuly 29, 2014 Unidata Program Center Seminar Video: YouTube (and below) The Unidata Program Center's two summer student interns — Florita Rodriguez from Texas A&M Univeristy in College Station, TX, and Shawn Cheeks from Marshall University in Huntington, WV — have come to the end of their summer appointments. After a summer's dilligent work, they presented the results of their projects to the UPC staff on July 29, 2014. The Unidata Summer Internships offer undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to work with Unidata software engineers and scientists on projects drawn from a wide variety of areas in the atmospheric and computational sciences. Read this blog post for a summary of Florita and Shawn's projects. |
GEOSS Common Infrastructure and the Brokering FrameworkStefano Nativi, National Research Council of ItalyJuly 10, 2014 Foothills Lab 2, Room 1001 Seminar Presentation: (Not yet available) Seminar Video: (Not yet available) Global sustainability research requires an integrated multidisciplinary effort underpinned by a collaborative environment discovering and accessing heterogeneous data across disciplines. Traditionally, interoperability has been achieved by implementing federation of systems. The federating approach entails the adoption of a set of common technologies and standards. This presentation argues that for complex (and uncontrolled) environments (such as global, multidisciplinary, and voluntary-based infrastructures) federated solutions must be completed and enhanced by a brokering approach — making available a set of brokering services. In fact, brokerage services allows a cyber-infrastructure to lower entry barriers (for both data producers and users) and to better address the different domain specificities. The brokering interoperability approach was successfully applied and enhanced by the GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems) Initiative. The GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI) adopts a powerful brokering framework called GEO DAB (Discovery and Access Broker). GEO DAB provides a services platform to discover, evaluate, access, transform, and portrayal geospatial datasets. GCI and the GEO DAB address most of the Bi Data challenges affecting GEOSS. The seminar introduces the GCI with particular attention to the DAB role and the next coming research and development topics. |
Visualization of the weather-climate connectionBrian Mapes, University of MiamiMay 5, 2014 Seminar presented by the NCAR Advanced Study Program Mesa Laboratory Main Seminar Room Seminar Presentation: PDF Seminar Video: YouTube (and below) Data visualization is an appealing and fun craft. If done well, it can support realism in scientific reasoning, for example by layering the texture of weather and useful indicators of uncertainty (such as an ensemble of different data products) onto the smooth abstractions of climate statistics. These days, large time-aggregated archives of many reanalysis and satellite-observational datasets are available via OpenDAP. UCAR/Unidata's free Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) and related softwares are in good shape to take advantage of these, obviating the need for downloading and organizing dataset collections. There is just the small matter of software complexity to contend with. I will show a few pretty (and scientific) results, and describe my efforts to salvage lasting value from much obsessive toil behind the scenes by assembling a newbie-friendly self-updating IDV Plug in, pointing to an ever-improving Web-hosted collection of templates and other user resources. I am trying to make it easier to gain the IDV's great strength — rich, multi-source data integrations — for myself and my students, and for others. |
2013 Russell L. DeSouza Award Presentation and SeminarLarry Oolman, University of WyomingOctober 3, 2013 UCAR Foothills Lab, Building 4, Room #1201 Seminar Presentation: PDF Seminar Video: YouTube (and below) Dr. Larry Oolman of the University of Wyoming's Department of Atmospheric Science was awarded the 2013 Russell L. DeSouza Award by the Unidata Users committee. He attended the October 2013 Users Committee meeting, during which he received the award certficate and gave a presentation titled "Thinking Outside the Unidata Box." |
2012 Russell L. DeSouza Award Presentation and SeminarDavid Knight, University at Albany, SUNYApril 2, 2012, 12:00pm UCAR Foothills Lab, Anthes Building, Room #2205 Seminar Presentation: PDF Seminar Webcast: HTML Dr. David Knight of the University at Albany – SUNY's Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences was awarded the 2012 Russell L. DeSouza Award by the Unidata Users committee. He attended the April 2012 Users Committee meeting, during which he received the award certficate and gave a presentation titled "Collaboration and Cooperation, or, The Importance of Community Service to Unidata." |
NCAR's Data-Centric Supercomputing Environment: YellowstoneDavid Hart, NCAR Computational and Information Systems LaboratoryNovember 29, 2011, 2:00pm UCAR Foothills Lab 2, auditorium Seminar Presentation: PDFs Seminar Webcast: MP4 Yellowstone will be the inaugural computing resource at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Yellowstone will be a 1.6-petaflops IBM iDataPlex cluster with 74,592 processor cores and 149.2 TB of memory. Yellowstone will be integrated with a centralized file system and data storage system that will provide 11 PB of usable disk capacity. Two data analysis and visualization systems (Geyser and Caldera) will support large-scale data analysis and visualization activities. Equipment delivery will commence in early 2012, with production computing operations expected in summer 2012. The Yellowstone environment at NWSC will greatly expand the opportunities for researchers in the atmospheric and related sciences, with more than 600 million core-hours available each year. David Hart from CISL's User Services Section will describe the Yellowstone environment and the allocations options for the user community. |
GEOPOD: An interactive module for navigating and probing geophysical dataMichael R. Root, Ky P. Waegel, Lindsey. M. Crouse, Gary M. Zoppetti, Sepideh Yalda, Richard D. Clark, Millersville UniversityApril 11, 2011 UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: HTM GEOPOD is an intuitive, interactive Java module that allows users to navigate and probe an immersive 3-D world featuring authentic geophysical data. The interface allows undergraduate students to actuate virtual devices while being guided by pre-planned missions. Since the data volume is constructed using output from numerical weather prediction models based on actual physics, the exploration environment naturally exhibits technical accuracy, scientific soundness, physical consistency, and authenticity. These attributes would be enormously challenging and costly to generate with synthetic simulations. GEOPOD leverages the Unidata Program Center's open source Java-based visualization software, the Integrated Data Viewer (IDV), to import and render model output. The use of IDV as a core application allows the development team to focus solely on the design and implementation of an intuitive interface for navigating the volume. The GEOPOD mission subsystem guides students through a sound instructional design plan that includes learning objectives, learner characteristics, learning theory, instructional strategy, and practical context. The presentation will demonstrate the key features of the GEOPOD including, but not limited to the following: 1) the GEOPOD interface; 2) customizable display panels with drag-and-drop capability for up to 20 user-selected meteorological variables; 3) intuitive keyboard and mouse navigation (with optional Wii controller capability); 4) high fidelity isosurface traversal; 5) an autopilot system for smoothly flying to a destination; 6) integration of Google map technology for both forward and reverse geocoding – users can look up a destination for the autopilot using an address or ground-truth their current location; 7) particle imaging (snow crystals, liquid droplets) and vertical profiling (dropsonde) virtual devices; 8) flight event recording and replay; 9) Web-based mission builder for user or instructor defined missions and assessments; and 10) point-of-interest annotation. This project is funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF-IIS 0835411). |
Webcast recordings will play in QuickTime, Real Player or VLC Media Player.
Multi-Disciplinary Interoperability ChallengesStefano Nativi, Italian National Research Council and the University of FlorenceDecember 10, 2010, 10:00 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF Seminar Webcast: RM Multi-disciplinary interoperability is essential to underpin the Earth System Science and contribute to address the challenges raised by the global changes. In fact, the scope and complexity of the Earth system investigations demand the formation of distributed, multidisciplinary collaborative teams. Earth system analysis is a challenge for scientists as much as it is for information technology experts. Research and developments dealing with multi-disciplinary interoperability will be presented and discussed. This has been carried out in the framework of some EU-funded projects and GEO/GEOSS activities. The addressed topics include:
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ISO Metadata Standards and Interoperable UnderstandingTed Habermann, NOAA/NESDIS/NGDCJune 22, 2010, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: MP4 | MOV Documentation provides the context that adds understanding and knowledge to data. The ISO Standards for documenting data (19115, 19115-2), and services (19119) extend the range of standard documentation considerably beyond previously available approaches. They include increased utilization of technologies like UML, XML and linking and content areas like data quality and processing history. These extensions can build an emerging foundation of data interoperability into an infrastructure for interoperable understanding. This process will involve active collaboration between many environmental data providers and archives all over the world that are currently in the process of adopting and understanding how to effectively use the ISO Standards. This seminar will describe ISO capabilities in the context of parallels between metadata tools and data interoperability approaches developed and used by UCAR and others. I will demonstrate how directories shared over the web, transport standards, and community conventions build the foundation for documentation access and data understanding. I will also demonstrate crosswalks and connections between ISO, THREDDS, and NetCDF documentation and some ideas and approaches to improving documentation across the entire spectrum of environmental. |
DeSouza Award Presentation: 16 Years Serving Students, and the UNIDATA CommunityGilbert Sebenste, Northern Illinois UniversityMarch 11 2010, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Webcast: RM |
RAMADDA: Content Management for the Earth SciencesJeff McWhirter, Unidata Program CenterJanuary 14, 2010, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1022 Seminar Presentation: PDF Seminar Webcast: MP4 | MOV RAMADDA (Repository for Archiving, Managing and Accessing Diverse DAta) is a web-based application framework developed at the Unidata Program Center that provides a broad suite of services for content and data management, publishing and collaboration. RAMADDA brings together a number of concepts and technlogies to provide an easy to use but powerful system for publishing, organizing, discovering. and accessing data and other holdings. Development of RAMADDA has occurred over the past two years, but its first release date was fall 2009. The software is currently installed at a number of sites. In this talk we will describe the underlying architecture and data model of RAMADDA and demonstrate how it can be used to support a wide variety of needs within the Earth science community. |
Webcast recordings will play in QuickTime, Real Player or VLC Media Player.
The Unidata Outreach Activities with a Focus on International Standards Related to Atmospheric Data AccessBen Domenico, Unidata Program CenterSeptember 22, 2009, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM From the earliest stages, there has been strong interest in Unidata tools and data services from outside the core community of US academic departments in the atmospheric sciences. In particular, the disciplines "at the margins" of the core community: oceanography, hydrology, environmental science, ecology, etc. have participated in the program at various levels over the years. Recent developments in the area of web services hold out the hope of making the data systems of these disciplines interoperable without each group having to adopt the internal systems of the others in order to make use of their data. Several international standards groups are working on conventions, protocols and interfaces that foster such interoperability and hence have a bearing on our ability to make atmospheric data available to other communities. This is especially true for the groups who have traditionally used GIS tools, e.g, hydrology, biogeosciences, societal impacts and hazard response. These standards organizations include ISO, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) as well as the members of our own community involved in OPeNDAP, the Climate and Forecast Conventions, and the evolution of the netCDF. This talk provides an overview of the efforts underway and a recap of recent progress. A special effort will be made to indicate how these efforts tie in with those of the other groups within Unidata. |
The Challenges of the ECMWF Graphics PackagesSylvie Lamy-Thepaut, ECMWFAugust 5, 2009, 1:00 PM UCAR Center Green Building 1, Room #2126 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: MP4 The mission of the ECMWF Graphics Section is to develop and support graphical software to help researchers in the manipulation and visualisation of meteorological data. Nowadays these desktop based tools are challenged every day by the need for lighter web applications, the introduction of new input data and output formats, and an increasing amount of data to be manipulated and visualised. This talk will present the evolution of our 2 software packages (Metview 4/Magics++) to cope with these new requirements: 1) more interactive data examination tools and the integration of products produced by any external OGC web map service (WMS) into our Metview 4 package; and 2) more flexibility to use new input data formats and produce new output formats into our Magics++ package. We will also present our new web-based project using Magics++ as a graphical kernel. The project will provide the forecasters of the ECMWF Member States with a tool to display products and interact with them (ie panning, zooming) and distribute these same products via WMS. |
An Update on the NOAA Meteorological Assimilation Data Ingest System (MADIS)Patricia A. Miller and Michael F. Barth, NOAA ESRL/GSDApril 28, 2009, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM MADIS is a NOAA Research system, developed at the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), that serves the meteorological community by supporting observation collection integration, quality control, and distribution of thousands of NOAA and non-NOAA observations, including over 50,000 surface mesonet stations from local, state, and federal agencies, and private networks, as well as upper-air datasets including multi-agency wind profiler and automated, commercial aircraft observations. The mesonet database includes Road Weather Information System observations from state Departments of Transportation, as well as real-time observations from the Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS) network, the Cooperative Mesonets in the Western U.S. (MesoWest) network, the WeatherBug and UrbaNet networks operated by AWS Convergence Technologies, Inc., the Citizen Weather Observing Program (CWOP) network, and others, many of which provide dense observations in urban areas. MADIS receives these observations in different formats, units, and time stamps, and provides them in a single uniform database. Additionally, MADIS supplies data providers with quality control and station monitoring information to assist in their maintenance activities and to enhance and promote the mutual benefits of public/private data sharing. Organizations receiving MADIS data feeds include National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices, the NWS National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and many major universities and commercial weather businesses. In 2007, the NOAA Research Council and NOAA Transition Board rated MADIS as one of NOAA's highest priority research-to-operations transition projects. Overall plans for the transition include the implementation of MADIS real-time capabilities at the NWS and the transfer of existing MADIS saved datasets and future archive responsibilities to the NESDIS National Climatic Data Center. The NWS transition approach will consist of an integrated NWS Telecommunications (TOC) and National Centers for Environmental Prediction Central Operations (NCO) distributed system. ESRL will remain as the primary MADIS Research and Development organization, and will host a research-to-operations test environment facility within the ESRL/GSD Central Facility. This seminar will provide a status update on the existing MADIS system, a general overview of MADIS transition plans, and will also cover plans for upgrades to MADIS datasets and services. |
Webcast recordings will play in QuickTime, Real Player or VLC Media Player.
A Prototype Earth-Gauging System Integrating Weather and Health Data to Manage MeningitisRaj Pandya, UCARDecember 8, 2008, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM The overarching goal of this seminar is to describe efforts to save lives and enhance livelihoods in Ghana through integration of health and environmental data, and by using that data in service of health-related decision-making. Specifically, we aim to build and implement prototype decision-support system that integrates two- to 14-day weather forecasts and epidemiological data to provide actionable information that can be used to contain the spread of meningitis epidemics. By applying a preliminary economic evaluation of this decision support system, we will be able assess the potential benefit of using environmental data to improve public health outcomes, help prioritize continuing investment in meningitis management in Ghana and throughout the Meningitis Belt, and determine the appropriateness of extending the prototype to other diseases, nations, and continents. This effort is a small piece of an overall Google.org effort to develop an /Earth-gauging System /that will integrate environmental, health and development data into products that stakeholders and researchers can use to monitor variables, analyze trends and identify relationships among different variables. The /Earth-gauging System /will support the prediction of emerging threats, and provide the basis for a robust early-warning system that will improve health, food security, and development and conservation outcomes. |
Impact of the 2008 Tropical Cyclone Season on the Baja California Peninsula, MexicoLuis M Farfan, CICESEOctober 31, 2008, 12:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF Seminar Webcast: RM The current season has almost ended, with 16 named systems, of which three made landfall over the southern half of the peninsula. The landfall cyclones included Tropical Storm Julio (August 24), Tropical Storm Lowell (September 10), and Hurricane Norbert (October 10). Beginning this summer, CICESE is receiving satellite imagery from Unidata, and this has been used to document the development of the above cases. In addition, GEMPAK is used to make graphical displays on a real-time basis. The presentation includes meteorological aspects of the structure and movement, track predictions, and the impact of the storms on the population in the area, with emphasis on Hurricane Norbert. This season was remarkable in that it was the first time, since observations were based on satellite imagery that three tropical cyclones made landfall over the southern peninsula. |
Continuous Temperature, Humidity and Liquid Water ProfilingRandolph Stick Ware, NCAR/MMMSeptember 25, 2008, 3:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1022 Seminar Presentation: PDF |
An Update on the Scientific Data Type Layer of Unidata's Common Data ModelJohn Caron, Unidata Program CenterJuly 8, 2008, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM This talk will give an update on the Common Data Model's (CDM) abstractions for Scientific Data Types (now called "feature types", to emphasize similarities to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) feature and coverage abstract models). Special attention will be given to the one-dimensional point feature types. |
Securing the Legacy of the International Polar YearMark Parsons, National Snow and Ice Data CenterMay 6, 2008, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Webcast: RM We are in the midst of one of the most exciting international and interdisciplinary science projects that many of us will encounter in our professional careers - the International Polar Year. Scientists in the natural, social, and health sciences are collaborating on some 228 endorsed projects in both the Arctic and Antarctic during a two-year period (March 2007-March 2009) of intense field observations. These science projects address crucial issues at a critical time in the evolution of the Earth system. A common thread in all projects is how we manage the data for collaboration now, during this IPY, and in the future as new science topics and issues emerge. The International Polar Year Data and Information Service (IPYDIS) is a global partnership of data centers, archives, and networks working to ensure proper stewardship of IPY and related data. The National Snow and Ice Data Center acts as a coordination office for the IPYDIS to ensure the long-term preservation of broad, interdisciplinary, and non-expert access to IPY data. The IPYDIS tracks the data flow for IPY and helps researchers and data users identify data access mechanisms, archives, and services. The IPYDIS also provides information and assistance to data managers on compliance with standards, development of a union catalog of IPY metadata, and other data management requirements for IPY. It provides a general communication forum for all matters related to accessing, managing, and preserving IPY and related data. The IPYDIS is guided by the IPY Data Policy and Management Subcommittee, which develops the overall IPY data strategy and policies. The IPYDIS also supports and participates in the Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY), which promotes a modern e-Science approach to issues of data stewardship: open access to data, data preservation, data discovery, data rescue, capacity building, and outreach. This presentation reviews current activities and future challenges for the IPYDIS in creating a sustained polar data system. Ultimately, we seek to create a data preservation and access "utility" a core infrastructure of science that is simple, predictable, reliable, extensible, accessible, and durable. But just like with existing utilities, such as water, electricity, and communications, the basic simplicity on the surface belies deep complexity, structure, planning, and professionalism. Creating that level of infrastructure requires great collaboration around standards, maintenance, and professional development and certification. We must bridge cultural barriers between scientific disciplines, between data managers and researchers, between libraries and data centers. |
MicroWave Weather CamMark Parsons, National Snow and Ice Data CenterApril 24, 2008, 12:00 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | HTML (login: unidata password: radiometer ) Seminar Webcast: RMVB A hyperspectral microwave camera reveals otherwise invisible air temperature, humidity and liquid structure, during all weather conditions. Combined with Internet browser-based control and display software, this technology is a powerful new tool for research and education. |
DeSouza Award Presentation: Use of Unidata Software, Tools and DataMark Laufersweiler, University of OklahomaApril 10, 2008, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF Seminar Webcast: RM |
Webcast recordings will play in QuickTime, Real Player or VLC Media Player.
Opportunities and Challenges for Meteorology in Africa With a Focus on West Africa: A Perspective From Current Ongoing UCAR ProjectsRoelof Bruintjes, NCAR/RALOctober 15, 2007, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM UCAR and the universities have embarked on an Africa Initiative about a year ago. The primary purpose was to focus some of the work conducted at UCAR and NCAR in Africa in a coordinated manner and to involve the university community and others in the U.S., Europe and Africa in this effort. UCAR has currently several ongoing projects in Africa with most in West Africa. Several pilot projects were launched in the past year. The seminar will provide an overview of these projects and the plans to enhance these projects in the coming year. Several other U.S. institutions (US-AID, U.S. State Department and the National Academies of Sciences) have also recently or are on the process of developing new initiatives in Africa. The seminar will also provide a brief introduction to these initiatives and our potential interaction and participation in these initiatives. |
Writing NetCDF Files: Best PracticesJohn Caron and Russ Rew, Unidata Program CenterJune 28, 2007, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT (Rew) | PPT (Caron) Seminar Webcast: RM Data formats, data models, and data conventions play different roles in capturing the meaning in data and enhancing interoperability. The Unidata Common Data Model, the netCDF-4 format, and developments with the CF data conventions offer opportunities for better data representations, but compatibility with existing programs and services must be a consideration during a transition to use of the new capabilities. We list potential benefits in using what the new data model offers and describe advantages of using the new model with the "classic" format. In addition, we provide some early recommendations for data providers and software developers and speculate on changes to best practices. We will also look at some examples of existing conventions for observational data to understand their strengths and limitations. |
Data and Services provided by EUMETSAT, the European Organisation for Exploitation of Meteorological SatellitesVolker Gaertner, EUMETSATJune 5, 2007, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM The seminar talk will provide an overview of the tasks, duties and services of the European Organisation for Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, EUMETSAT. As an operational agency EUMETSAT is providing data for weather forecasting, climate monitoring and environmental applications. EUMETSAT maintains and develops space based satellite systems like Meteosat and Metop. |
Joint NCAR/EOL-Unidata SeminarSteve Williams, Chris Webster, Dennis Flanigan, NCAR/EOLMay 29, 2007, 9:30 AM -11:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF (Williams) | PDF (Webster) | PDF (Flanigan) Seminar Webcast: RM |
The Comprehensive Large Array Stewardship System (CLASS): Living With a Multi-Petabyte ResourceEric A. Kihn, NOAAMarch 19, 2007, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM The CLASS project derives in part from an effort by NOAA to centralize its numerous data systems for environmental data access. The goal of this effort was to eliminate the various "stove-pipe" systems and produce a unified "enterprise" data access system for the major NOAA data holdings. The CLASS the system is:
A new node of the CLASS system will open this year in Boulder at the National Geophysical Data Center and eventually be populated by many petabytes of data including GOES, POES, NPOESS, NEXRAD and many others. This talk will present the impacts and opportunities such an archive allows the environmental data user. It will cover API development, metadata and high-volume data access as well a discussion of the future of CLASS within NOAA. |
Webcast recordings will play in QuickTime, Real Player or VLC Media Player.
AND Archives: Freeing Ourselves from the "Tyranny of the OR"Ted Habermann, NOAA National Data CentersNovember 29, 2006, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM Jim Collins described the Tyranny of the OR in his now classic book Built to Last: the rational view that can not easily accept paradox, that cannot live with two seemingly contradictory forces or ideas at the same time. This concept may have some relevance in the data management community. In many cases, data users have been divided into two groups: science users OR GIS users, and systems are built that serve one group OR the other. We might call these OR Archives. Collins suggests that highly visionary companies do not oppress themselves with the Tyranny of the OR. In the data management world, these might be termed AND Archives. They build systems that support science users AND GIS users. The Common Data Model and THREDDS Data Server work done recently at Unidata has demonstrated the possibility that AND can be integrated into the foundation of our data systems. I will explore this idea using some recent work at NGDC with Level 2 Sea Surface Temperature observations from NESDIS. It turns out that these data blur some traditional distinctions between GIS and satellite data. I will also discuss some recent work on rich inventories and diffusion of standards in mature organizations. |
Initial Results and Operational Plans for the six-satellite Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC)Chris Rocken and Doug Hunt, UOP/COSMICAugust 29, 2006, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM Formosat-3 / COSMIC (F3/C) is a joint Taiwan - US radio occultation (RO) satellite mission for weather forecasting, climate monitoring, space weather monitoring, and geodetic research. NSF, NOAA, NASA, USAF and ONR jointly support the US component of the mission. The F3/C mission was successfully launched into a circular ~ 500 km low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on 15 April 2006. Six identical micro satellites, each carrying an advanced GPS radio occultation receiver, a tiny ionospheric photometer (TIP) and a Coherent Electromagnetic Radio Tomography (CERTO) beacon for ionospheric tomography/scintillation, were deployed successfully. All satellites and payloads appear to be working well. Operational data processing and distribution of the data to users started in July, 2006. Presently (mid-August 2006) the mission is generating about 1000 profiles in the neutral atmosphere and up to 2500 profiles in the ionosphere. Ultimately the mission will generate over 2500 high-resolution daily profiles of atmospheric bending, refractivity, pressure, temperature and humidity with high vertical resolution and high long-term stability in all weather. The mission will also provide a large ionospheric data set including line-of sight satellite to satellite and satellite to ground TEC, ionospheric profiles, scintillation (S4 parameter) observations, and TIP radiometric observations. This presentation will provide a description of the F3/C mission and data products with emphasis on data distribution and a demonstration of tools for data analysis. |
Interoperability Between Earth Sciences and GIS Models: A Holistic ApproachStefano Nativi, Italian National Research Council and the University of FlorenceJuly 27, 2006, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM As observational and model output datasets in the Earth Sciences (e.g. oceanography and atmospheric science) increase in resolution, there is an increasing demand for information systems that interoperate between the Land Management (mainly using GIS) and Earth Sciences realms. However, differences in the way the two communities think about their data and services can cause difficulties. In the present Web era, these different conceptual approaches produce diverse content models, generating disciplinary Markup Languages, and diverse service protocols and interfaces. As the technology of web services accessible by computer programs evolves, the challenge for those studying the Earth from an interdisciplinary perspective is to develop interoperable data models that can span the specific models employed in individual disciplines. Moreover, these interoperable models have to be integrated with the semi-structured framework of the Web itself. International initiatives (e.g. ISO TC 211 and the Open Geospatial Consortium OpenGIS) have released geo-information standard models conceived to support general interoperability. These efforts led to the definition of "more general" models for Geospatial Information. This approach is gaining value in several international initiatives, such as: GEOSS, National Spatial Data Infrastructure initiatives (e.g. ESDI and FGDC/NSDI), NSDL, GMES (Global Monitoring of Environment and Security) initiative, etc. There exists the need to shift from a "traditional" cartographic to a more general informatics viewpoint. An holistic approach to mediate and harmonize the different data and metadata models of the two communities (i.e. Land Management and Earth Sciences) is discussed. An implemented solution is presented; based on it, a valuable framework is introduced and some experimentations are reported. Several important and open issues will be introduced, such as: discovery services harmonization, scientific ML harmonization/mediation, spatial data infrastructure implementing rules, security and trustability services. |
A Virtual Operations Center (VOC) for Field Experiments in the Atmospheric SciencesMike Daniels, NCAR/EOLMay 30, 2006, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM Field experiments in the atmospheric sciences have grown in complexity, in part due to enhanced capabilities of our observing platforms and models as well as more available access to a whole array of new operational networks (e.g. satellites, mesonets, WSR-88D radars, etc.). During a field campaign, these data are sent to an on-site Operations Center and used in the real-time direction of observing platforms and subsequent analysis to plan future missions. Advances in communications and Information Technology have given us an opportunity to significantly improve our ability to meet the science-driven requirements of these centers, now and in the future. The Virtual Operations Center (VOC) proposal, recently submitted to the NSF, seeks to formally address the challenges of building these centers in more cohesive way using technologies that are being developed across UCAR. The VOC will address new capabilities in the areas of visualization, forecast model assimilation, real-time data management and network-based collaborative tools which will lead to more efficient use of our observing platforms and improved field project datasets. It will also expand the field participation of interested researchers, staff, students and others at remote sites. |
The Earth System Modeling Framework and Earth System Curator: Software Components as Building Blocks of Models and CommunityCecelia DeLuca, NCAR/CISLFebruary 27, 2006, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM The Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) is an established multi-agency effort to develop infrastructure for building and coupling Earth system models. The newly-funded Earth System Curator is a related database and toolkit that will store information about model configurations, prepare models for execution, and run them locally or in a distributed fashion. The key concept that underlies both projects is that of software components. These components may be representations of physics domains, such as atmospheres or oceans; processes within particular domains such as atmospheric radiation; or physics or computational functions, such as data assimilation or coupling. ESMF provides interfaces, an architecture, and tools for structuring components hierarchically to form complex, coupled modeling applications. The Earth System Curator will enable modelers to archive and manipulate components. Together these projects encourage a new paradigm for modeling: one in which the community can draw from a federation of many interoperable components in order to assemble and run applications. Groups that are using ESMF include WRF, CCSM, NOAA NCEP and GFDL, NASA climate programs, the Army, Air Force, and Navy, and universities including MIT and UCLA. |
GRID-BGC: A Grid-Enabled Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Modeling SystemMatthew Woitaszek and Jason Cope, University of ColoradoJanuary 23, 2006, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM Grid-BGC is a Grid-enabled terrestrial biogeochemical cycle simulator collaboratively developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado (CU) with funding from NASA. The primary objective of the project is to utilize Globus Grid technology to integrate inexpensive commodity cluster computational resources at CU with the mass storage system at NCAR, while hiding the logistics of data transfer and job submission from the scientists. We describe a typical process for simulating the terrestrial carbon cycle, present our solution architecture and software design, and describe our implementation experiences with Grid technology on our systems. By design, the Grid-BGC software framework is extensible in that it can utilize other Grid-accessible computational resources and be readily applied to other climate simulation problems with similar workflows. Overall, this project demonstrates an end-to-end system that leverages Grid technologies to harness distributed resources across organizational boundaries to achieve a cost-effective solution to a compute-intensive problem. |
Webcast recordings will play in QuickTime, Real Player or VLC Media Player.
The LEAD Effort at UnidataTom Baltzer, Brian Kelly, Doug Lindholm, Anne Wilson, Unidata Program CenterDecember 14, 2005, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM The LEAD project aims to build a cyberinfrastructure for mesoscale research and education. Unidata is one of the ten institutions involved in this effort. In addition to providing experience with atmospheric data and deployment of robust, reliable software, currently Unidata's contributions to this effort fall into three main areas: implementation of steered forecasts, the building of a large testbed for computing and storage, and the THREDDS Data Repository, a THREDDs-compatible data storage framework that provides high level data storage abstractions and also supports data discovery through browsing and querying of metadata. This talk will describe these efforts including their benefits to both LEAD and the Unidata community. |
The Virtual ObservatoryPeter Fox, NCAR/HAONovember 28, 2005, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM Since being named around 2000, Virtual Observatories (VO) have started to change the way some fields of science think about their data collection, storage and distribution. Unfortunately, the concept of VO's far preceded any instantiations. As a result this has led to a great deal of uncertainty about what a VO is and is not and how they do or do not different from generic distributed data systems. Are they systems, or frameworks, do they contain data, metadata, etc.? his talk will present the current concepts and examples of instances of VOs in a few different disciplines, and discuss the nature and diversity of these VOs. We then turn to the emerging need for interdisciplinary VOs and how that presents a major challenge to present VOs and their current technologies and especially interoperability. This discussion will lead into use-case driven methodologies, the importance of semantics, data integration, ontologies, and rapid prototyping. We will use some examples from several discipline specific VOs, and two new projects: the Virtual Solar-Terrestrial Observatory (VSTO) and Semantically Enabled Scientific Data Integration (SESDI). |
The National Polar-orbiting Operational Satellite System (NPOESS) Ground SegmentsDr. Scott Turek, Raytheon Intelligence and Information SystemsSeptember 27, 2005, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Defense (DoD), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are jointly acquiring the next-generation weather and environmental satellite system; the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for NPOESS; Raytheon is a primary teammate with overall responsibility for the design and development of the NPOESS Ground Segments. NPOESS replaces the current Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) managed by NOAA and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) managed by the DoD. The NPOESS satellites carry a suite of sensors that collect meteorological, oceanographic, climatological, and solar-geophysical observations of the earth, atmosphere, and space. Demanding NPOESS mission data latency and availability requirements drive the selection of a ground architecture that implements a globally distributed network of ground stations, connected via terrestrial fiber. This architecture is part of the Raytheon-developed Command, Control and Communications Segment (C3S). The ground data processing segment for NPOESS is the Interface Data Processing Segment (IDPS), also developed by Raytheon. The IDPS processes NPOESS satellite data to provide environmental data products to NOAA and DoD processing centers operated by the United States government. The IDPS will process environmental data products beginning with the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) and continuing through the lifetime of the NPOESS system. The IDPS must process a data volume significantly greater than the current POES and DMSP systems and within significantly reduced processing times. This paper will describe the architecture approach to hardware and software that is necessary to meet these challenging NPOESS C3S and IDPS design requirements. |
National Lambda Rail (NLR) and Potential Merger with Internet2/AbileneMarla Meehl, NCAR/CISLAugust 24, 2005, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF Seminar Webcast: RM This seminar will provide an overview of NLR and its capabilities and the discussions in progress for a potential merger with Internet2/Abilene. |
LDM 6.4: Combining Flexibility with PowerSteve Emmerson and Tom Yoksas, Unidata Program CenterJune 27, 2005, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF (Emmerson) | PDF (Yoksas) | PPT (Emmerson) | PPT (Yoksas) Version 6.4 of the Local Data Manager (LDM) has several new features that make it the most flexible and powerful LDM to date. New features include:
The seminar will examine these features in detail. It will also present results from a stress-test of a high-availability LDM cluster whose rate of outgoing data was not limited by the LDM and whose peak rate was 8.4 terabytes per day. |
National Mosaic and Quantitative Precipitation Estimation Project (NMQ)Ken Howard, NOAA/NSSLMay 17, 2005, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT |
Plans for AWIPS Next GenerationDarien Davis, NOAA/FSLApril 12, 2005, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM The current software and hardware supporting the National Weather Service (NWS) forecast functions is almost ten years old. The current warning system IT was developed as a prototype at the Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) and has not had an infrastructure upgrade since. Although the quantity of data has seen a huge influx during that time period, the system has adapted to the needs of the forecaster. However, the time has come to look at new technology to handle the diverse datasets available in the near and distant future. Activities for technology infusion are underway. In addition to NOAA-wide and NWS-wide activities to address infrastructure changes, FSL is involved with minor prototyping activities to give guidance toward new data retrieval methods. Adding capabilities to simplify the retrieval and display of data is critical for future NWS forecaster needs. In addition, a visualization programmer interface is instrumental for a collaborative development environment. To leverage the software development talents available with personnel at the NWS field offices and research from other NOAA laboratories, an interface is necessary. This talk will address the activities at NOAA, NWS, and FSL that are underway investigating new technologies for the forecast office and NOAA in general. |
The NMQ/Jade ProjectSteven Vasiloff, NOAA/NSSLMarch 28, 2005, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM While fresh water resource accounting is critical to the social and economic welfare of the United States, there currently exists no seamless and systematic high-resolution multisensor-based monitoring of precipitation for water resource management. Further, an open, end-to-end infrastructure for research, development, and comparison assessment of new multiple sensor quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) and short-term quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF) applications necessary for hydrometeorology does not exist at this time. The National Mosaic and QPE (NMQ) project is a joint initiative between the NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory and the NOAA/National Weather Service/Office of Hydrologic Development to address the pressing needs for high-resolution multisensor QPE for all seasons, regions, and terrains in support of comprehensive hydrometeorological and hydrologic data assimilation and distributed hydrologic modeling. The objectives of the NMQ project are as follows:
This seminar will describe the NMQ computing and algorithm infrastructure that will form the basis for QPE. In addition, the initial formulation of JADE will be described. |
The Developmental Testbed CenterBob Gall, NCAR and Steve Koch, NOAA/FSLFebruary 7, 2005, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF (Gall) | PFD (Koch) Seminar Webcast: RM The Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) is a facility where the NWP (Numerical Weather Prediction) research and operational communities interact to accelerate testing and evaluation of new models and techniques for research applications and operational implementation, without interfering with current operations. Currently, the transfer of new NWP science and technology from research into operations is inefficient. This is primarily due to all research being conducted at operational centers and/or their associated research organizations, which does not take advantage of the considerable talent elsewhere in the research community. There are few opportunities in the NWP research community to collaborate in an operations-like environment; and, there is nowhere that these communities can join to perform extensive rigorous model testing without disrupting operations. We will discuss the mission and activities at the DTC, with an emphasis on the current DTC Winter Forecast Experiment (DWFE). The research and operational communities have truly come together to carry out the DWFE, which involves running a 5-km version of the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model over the CONUS in real-time. We will discuss the purpose of this experiment, the role that FX-Net and AWIPS (as well as web sites) are playing in the dissemination of model forecast fields and products, the model verification and archival activities, and examples demonstrating the kind of detailed mesoscale phenomena that are being forecast and seen by the National Weather Service. |
Webcast recordings will play in QuickTime, Real Player or VLC Media Player.
NetCDF-Java version 2.2 and the Common Data ModelJohn Caron, Unidata Program CenterDecember 10, 2004, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Seminar Webcast: RM The latest version of the netCDF-Java library implements a "Common Data Model" (CDM), a merger of the netCDF, OPeNDAP and HDF5 data models. It is a prototype for the netCDF-4 project, which provides a C language API for the data access layer of the CDM, on top of the HDF5 file format. It also is a 100% Java framework for translation of other file formats into netCDF, where the actual writing of the netCDF file is optional. This technical talk will explain the Common Data Model, and overview netcdf-Java version 2.2 architecture, including the use of NcML and THREDDS to annotate and modify datasets. |
unidata.binaries.data: Have Some Data With Your Coffee?Anne Wilson, Unidata Program CenterNovember 4, 2004, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPS Have you ever read NetNews? Have you heard of newsgroups like sci.geo.meteorology, comp.lang.java or rec.games.backgammon? If so, then you're already somewhat familiar with this technology that we are testing to relay atmospheric data in near real time. NetNews, also known as Usenet, has been a forum for computer-based information exchange since 1979. In spite of newer web-based technologies, it remains a highly popular medium. Although it is impossible to accurately measure current usage, it is estimated that 600GB per day are exchanged among one to ten million servers worldwide, serving roughly 100,000 newsgroups to around 25 million users. Here at Unidata the NLDM project has been testing data relay using INN, a popular, freely available, open source news server package. In additional to efficient real time delivery and local data management, INN offers features beyond our current LDM technology. These features will be presented in this talk, along with a scenario or two illustrating their possible use. |
GEON Cyberinfrastructure Developments in the Earth SciencesChuck Meertens, UNAVCOOctober 1, 2004, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 4, Room #1318 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT The Earth and Computer Sciences communities are engaged in joint efforts to create new Information Technologies to address complex geological and geophysical problems such as will be encountered with the new EarthScope project. One such collaborative effort in Cyberinfrastructure, called GEON, is an NSF Large Scale ITR that involves the development of a distributed, services-based system that enables geoscientists to publish, share, integrate, analyze, and visualize their data. The GEON Grid technology-based system enables development and sharing of databases, ontology, tools, workflows, applications, and models. Here in Boulder, scientists and students at UNAVCO, DLESE, and the University of Colorado are participating in GEON efforts to study the Rocky Mountains and working on IT components. UNAVCO is modifying a version of UNIDATA's powerful IDV software to tailor it to meet Earth Science-specific visualization needs. An example will be shown where three-dimensional mantle seismic tomography and geodynamic models were converted to netCDF, placed on UNAVCO's OPeNDAP server, and viewed with the IDV. |
Exploring the Community Data PortalLuca Cinquini, NCAR/CISLSeptember 13, 2004, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPS The NCAR Community Data Portal (CDP) is part of the NCAR Cyberinfrastructure Strategic Initiative and is aimed at developing a central institutional gateway to the large and diversified data holdings of UCAR, NCAR and UOP. The ultimate goal is to provide a state of the art data portal with a broad spectrum of functionality ranging from data search and discovery to catalogs and metadata browsing, from high performance and reliable data download to analysis and visualization. This talk will describe the various technologies and standards that are integrated within the portal architecture, and will demo the currently available functionality. |
GIS Initiative: Developing an Atmospheric Data Model for GISOlga Wilhelmi and Jennifer Boehnert, NCARAugust 30, 2004, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPS Traditionally, geographic information science and technology have evolved from the requirements of a GIS community which until recently did not include atmospheric scientists. In recent years, progress has been made to extend capabilities of general-purpose GIS to the needs of hydrologic and oceanographic communities through development of domain-specific data models. Atmospheric science is one of the fields for which state-of-the-art, general-purpose GIS cannot fully accommodate the data and process models of the phenomena under study. Developing a community-based atmospheric data model for ArcGIS has recently begun with the goal to create means for effective organization of atmospheric data and facilitate extension of ESRI GIS capabilities for representing, querying, and analyzing time-dependent, raster, and volumetric data in a geographic context. This presentation will give an overview of the GIS Initiative ongoing work and discuss recent involvement of the Initiative in developing the atmospheric community data model. We will present the first steps of the conceptual design of the data model and discuss complexities that reside in representing the multidimensional, dynamic atmospheric phenomena. |
A Technical Overview of the Abstract Data Distribution Environment (ADDE)Don Murray, Unidata Program CenterMay 13, 2004, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPS ADDE is a client/server protocol developed as part of the McIDAS system. The Unidata community maintains a network of cooperating ADDE servers supplying real-time and archived satellite, radar, grid and point data. McIDAS and IDV users can connect to these and other servers to display and analyze data. A Java ADDE client system was developed as part of the VisAD package allowing other non-McIDAS Java-based programs to access these data. Don's talk will cover the protocol itself, the different types of data in ADDE, the Java interface and future directions. He will also provide a brief comparison with the OPeNDAP (DODS) client/server protocol. |
MeteoForum: An International Network of Meteorological Training Centers For the 21st CenturyTom Yoksas, Unidata Program Center & Tim Spangler, UCAR/COMETApril 11, 2004, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPS MeteoForum is a pilot project that is being developed jointly by the COMET and Unidata programs of UCAR. The concept involves the creation and enhancement of an international network where WMO Regional Meteorological Training Centers (RMTCs) work collaboratively with universities to enhance their roles of regional training and education through information technologies and multi-lingual collections of online resources. MeteoForum seeks to build a stronger sense of community among the RMTCs through internet-based interactions and through the sharing of educational concepts, educational materials, and real-time hydrometeorological data with one another and with affiliated universities. |
OPeNDAP & THREDDS: Access and Discovery of Distributed Scientific DataYuan Ho and Ethan Davis, Unidata Program CenterJanuary 23, 2004, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PPS OPeNDAP (Open source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol) provides a protocol and data model through which users can access scientific datasets from distributed locations and various data formats. In the main HTTP based implementation, the user requests data from OPeNDAP servers via URLs and the data are returned from the server via http communication protocols. The client application must then decode the returned data before it can be used. So that existing applications can quickly work with OPeNDAP, various existing data access APIs have been retrofitted to encapsulate the client-side OPeNDAP functionality. The OPeNDAP protocol does not include a dataset cataloging or discovery mechanism. To this end, the THREDDS (Thematic Real-time Environmental Distributed Data Services) project is developing a framework for cataloging and describing datasets. On this framework, various discovery services are being built. This presentation will review the fundamental concepts behind the OPeNDAP and THREDDS frameworks. From there, we will discuss how they fit together and future directions. |
Webcast recordings will play in QuickTime, Real Player or VLC Media Player.
Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery (LEAD)Mohan Ramamurthy, Unidata Program CenterNovember 17, 2003, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPS The Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery (LEAD) is a National Science Foundation-funded multi-institutional large Information Technology Research effort. In addition to the Unidata Program Center, the following institutions are involved in LEAD: University of Oklahoma, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Indiana University, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Howard University, Millersville University, and Colorado State University. The goal of LEAD is to create an integrated and scalable framework for identifying, accessing, preparing, assimilating, predicting, managing, analyzing, mining, and visualizing a broad array of meteorological data and model output, independent of format and physical location. To that end, LEAD will create a series of interconnected, heterogeneous Grid environments to provide a complete framework for mesoscale research, including a set of integrated Grid and Web Services. |
Atmospheric Science and GIS Interoperability Issues: Some Data Model and Computational Interface AspectsStefano Nativi, University of FlorenceSeptember 16, 2003, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF Some issues dealing with interoperability between atmospheric science and GIS services/data are discussed. Data model and computational interface aspects of interoperability are considered. WCS interface implementation for THREDDS and NcML-G (the GIS extension for NcML) are presented. |
An Overview of RAP's 4DWX (4-D Weather) ProgramScott Swerdlin, NCAR/RAPAugust 26, 2003, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPS RAP's 4DWX program, sponsored by a variety of DOD organizations, is in its 8th year of existence. The emphasis has been on providing operational, high-resolution mesoscale forecasts and storm nowcasts in support of seven Army test ranges and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the latter mostly for anti-terrorism applications. Recently, more emphasis has been placed on disseminating platform-independent visual information, including lightweight devices such as PDA's. Following a program overview, several capabilities will be demonstrated. |
Differences between LDM5 and LDM6Steve Emmerson, Unidata Program CenterJuly 14, 2003, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPS |
Recent Works on THREDDS and NetCDFJohn Caron, Unidata Program CenterJune 3, 2003, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPS |
Wavelet Transform-Based Data Compression and Its Application to Multi-Dimensional Gridded Data SetsNing Wang and Renate Brummer, NOAA/FSLMay 7, 2003, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPS Wavelet transform-based data compression is one of the most effective data compression techniques that emerged and evolved in 1990s. This technique takes advantage of the wavelet basis functions that are localized in both time and frequency, and combines that with a well-designed quantization scheme to achieve superior data compression performance. In this presentation, we will first provide an introduction of the wavelet data compression technique and the three major coherent steps of the compression procedure: transform, quantization and entropy encoding. We will discuss the selection of a wavelet mother function, pros and cons of different quantization techniques, and their implications to practical implementations. Comparison of our compression technique with widely used 'standard' image compression methods, including JPEG, will be made. We will present experimental results based on visible satellite images, utilizing our modified zero-tree like quantization. We will also discuss the possibilities of applying our technique to multi-dimensional model grids. A maximum allowable error is imposed for each model parameter at all grid points.tunable to user-specified accuracy requirement. We will discuss the problems and difficulties that arise from this error control requirement. Several different compression schemes will be described in our presentation, followed by our experimental results based on the Eta-12 numerical weather prediction forecast model. We will conclude our presentation with directions for future development of this technique. |
A Brief Tour Through COMET With a Look To the FutureTim Spangler, UCAR/COMETApril 7, 2003, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF | PPT Tim will provide a tour through some of what COMET has produced lately, provide a glimpse of the COMET -Unidata MeteoForum project, and talk about some new initiatives that could involve both programs. |
IDV, THREDDS, VGEEDon Murray, Ben Domenico, and Rajul Pandya, Unidata Program CenterMarch 10, 2003, 1:30 PM UCAR Foothills Lab 2, Room #1001 Seminar Presentation: PDF Have you heard these acronyms around UCAR? Join us at a Unidata-sponsored seminar to learn more about them. Discussion and demonstrations of each will be provided. Murray will present the Java-based Integrated Data Viewer, an analysis and visualization tool now offered by Unidata. Ben Domenico will cover the Thematic Realtime Environmental Data Distributed Services (THREDDS), which provides coherent access to large collections of real-time and archived datasets from a variety of environmental data sources at a number of distributed server sites. Raj Pandya will provided details and demonstration of the Visual Geophysical Exploration Environment, an inquiry based geoscience learning environment. |
