Title: Vladimir Volodya Papitashvili
1International Heliophysical Year 2007 North
American IHY Community Science Planning Workshop
Boulder, Colorado, February 16-18, 2005
VIRTUAL OBSERVATORIES AND INTERNATIONAL
HELIOPHYSICAL YEAR
- Vladimir (Volodya) Papitashvili
- Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space
Sciences - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
- and eGY Team
- http//www.eGY.org
2International Geophysical Year1957 - 1958
- IGY Objectives
- Allowed scientists from different countries to
participate in global observations of geophysical
phenomena using common instruments and data
processing schemes - Gathered data on various geophysical phenomena
from around the World - Established the World Data Center System
3IGY 50Planning for New International Programs
International Polar Year 2007 2008 IPY is
sponsored by ICSU and WMO, and it will expand
understanding of the key roles of the polar
regions in the globally-linked environment
International Year of Planet Earth The
International Union of Geosciences is leading the
planning for the Planet Earth Program. Sponsored
by the UN and UNESCO, this program will be
interpreting the Earths history as a basis for
forecasting likely future events
International Heliophysical Year 2007 IHY will
be sponsored by ICSU, with the goal of fostering
international cooperation in the study of
heliophysical phenomena now and in the future
Electronic Geophysical Year 2007 2008
Sponsored by the International Union of Geodesy
and Geophysics and endorsed by ICSU, the eGY is
to promote a revolution in geoscientific data
availability and access worldwide. This
coordinated international initiative will make
full use of the capabilities offered by modern
information management and digital
communications.
4To get scientific data from various, mostly
distributed sources, a scientist may have to
- Search through a number of data centers, various
institutions, observatories,
contact colleagues..
- Process collected data using mostly proprietary
codes, run models - and
- Get data via snail-mail, air-mail, e-mail, Web
Increasing Requirements Geospace and Earth
Systems Science Higher Resolution in space and
time Assimilation into Models
- Then ingest retrieved data into a local database
5Current Forms of Sharing Geoscience Data
Centralized distribution schemes World Data
Centers (WDC)
- Require continuous support for the data
acquisition, storage, and distribution - Submission of data remains voluntary
- Collected data are often not suitable for
submission e.g., the WDCs only accept absolute
geomagnetic measurements
Push Data Concept
6Sharing Distributed Geoscience Data
- Publishing and sharing data through World Wide
Web - Allows to avoid additional steps in data
preparation for submission to WDC - Achieves greater visibility amongst scientific
and user communities - A GRID (Fabric) of many inter-connected data
nodes is a new vision of distributed,
self-populating data repositories and centers - World Data Centers become an integral part of the
worldwide data fabric, serving as clearing
houses for the permanent data preservation
Pull Data Concept
7Virtual Observatory Components
Distributed databases accessed through the World
Wide Web portals (GRID nodes)
Data Visualization
Format Conversion
Data Acquisition
Location Discovery
A base concept for the Electronic Geophysical
Year (eGY) initiative - IUGG/IAGA, ICSU/WDC Panel
8VGMO.NET - Virtual Global Magnetic Observatory
Network
- VGMO.NET is a middleware architecture that
provides a new way for the worldwide geomagnetic
community to share data and functionality in a
platform-independent and location-neutral
environment - Design Goals
- Identify prospective data repositories and
provide transparent access to these remote
databases through a common interface - Perform online processing of acquired datasets
add construct self-populated databases on
individual machines - Self-populated sub-repositories can be made
available to other users through future request
chains, building a GRID-type access and computing
- Lowest layer - Location Discovery Module
- Data Acquisition via Internet
- ASCII to Flat File module converts downloaded
data into a Flat-File database - Integrated Visualization Layer
IDL
Matlab
Simulink
FFMN
FORMAT CONVERSION (A2F)
DATA ACQUISITION (HTTP/FTP/OPeNDAP/.)
LOCATION DISCOVERY (GeoMaC)
A four-tier architecture of VGMO.NET
9VGMO.NET - Architecture UnleashedTwo
Implementations
- Web-Based Portal http//mist.engin.umich.edu/vgm
o.html - A secure, scalable, platform independent, and
user-friendly software framework for remote
access to the VGMOs Flat File Manager - The Flat File Manager Client is written to the
Java 2 platform that requires a Java Web Start
(Java Network Launching Protocol)
- Self-Populating Standalone Version - available
for download from above site - An alternate version to create, manage, and
populate local geomagnetic databases from
INTERNET aims on building geomagnetic GRID access
10VGMO.NET Search Plot Exampleshttp//maggy.eng
in.umich.edu/mist/vgmo.html
11Virtual Radiation Belt Observatory
- Assembles data from all available sources
- Data from NOAA satellites (POES, GOES and NPOESS)
- Data from EUMETSAT satellites (MetOp)
- Data from NASA satellites (SAMPEX, POLAR)
- Data from DoD satellites (HEO, etc.)
- Data Management System
- Local data servers provide data to global data
servers which provide data in a standard data
model to the applications software, the data
assimilation model and to the physical models in
response to requests - This approach takes advantage of the SPIDR, ESG,
OMNIWeb, and CDAWeb systems operating at NGDC,
AFCCC, and NASA - Merge with data assimilation models and physical
models - Center for Integrated Space weather Models (CISM)
funded by NSF
12VRBO - Architecture Unleashed
Near Real Time Data
Data system that meets engineering, operational,
and scientific needs for
User Interface and Displays
Nowcast/ Forecast Models
GOES POES
CISM End-to-End Models Assimilation of
Extreme-Event Data
Climatology Models
- Climatology model for designing satellites
- Nowcasts/forecasts that provide situational
awareness for satellite operators. - Long term archives of simulated and observed data
for testing scientific theory
13A Concept of Carbon Cycle Virtual Observatory
Dust from MODIS
Distributed fossil fuel aerosols from nighttime
lights
Fires and smoke plumes
Authoritative descriptions of radiative forcing
by aerosols for climate studies requires
disparate data sets to drive numerical models
14eGY Working Group on Virtual Observatories
- WG Mission
- Stimulate, facilitate, and promote the
establishment of Virtual Observatories in
Geosciences - Promote the sharing of VxO know-how and
standards - Inform the science community, decision-makers,
students, and the public about available VxO - WG Activities
- Run specialist VxO meetings
- Organize VxO sessions/talks/posters at other
meetings - Use http//www.egy.org as a portal for VxO
- Run a VxO section of the eGY Newsletter
- Publish articles and press releases on VxO
- Run outreach education programs produce
education resources, CD-ROMs, etc.
15eGY Objectives
- Embrace and extend the IGY principles of data
sharing and scientific involvement - Make existing and newly accrued datasets
available free access to all - Digitize or convert to digital images analog
geoscience records making data available
electronically - Develop a World Wide System of Virtual Geoscience
and Geospace Observatories
16eGY Initial Timeline
- 2003
- July IUGG General Assembly, Sapporo, endorsed
eGY - December eGY planning discussion at AGU
- 2004
- March Paper describing eGY in Eos
- April May Presentations at EGU and AGU
- July eGY at IAGA Executive meeting at COSPAR
(Parris) - September eGY at IUGG Executive meeting
(Boulder) - Web site http//www.eGY.org
- 2005
- Presentations at IUGG Associations meetings
- eGY planning workshop
17eGY Participants
- International bodies
- AOGS
- CODATA
- FAGS
- ICSU
- IUGG
- IAGA
- PAA Data Information
- SCOSTEP
- SCAR / IPY
- SEG
- WDC Panel
National organizations Australia ANU,
UNSW Russia IZMIRAN UK - BAS USA NASA / IHY
NOAA / NGDC NOAA / SEC NSF / NCAR U.
Colorado - LASP U. Michigan - SPRL
18eGY Characteristics
- Timeliness Virtual Observatories middleware is
becoming widely available - Interdisciplinary Data sharing and data
accessibility are common issues in all fields of
geosciences - Affordable Simple networking technology
- Cost Effective More/better science for money
- Inclusive Opportunities for developed and
developing countries - Capacity Building Provides relevant research
experience for young scientists - Complementary to IPY, IHY, IYPE, and other
international initiatives like CAWSES, ILWS, etc.
19Summary
- During and after IGY about 50 permanent
observatories were set up in the Arctic and
Antarctic, and the World Data Center System was
established - The eGY is an umbrella initiative which
envisions massive deployment of Virtual
Geoscience Observatories in cyberspace - eGY four major themes
- - data access
- - data release
- - data preservation
- - information management and knowledge
discovery - capacity building and outreach
- Are YOU interested in eGY? Visit
http//www.eGY.org