GSFC Earth Sciences (GES)

1
Seamless Access to NASA Data from Operational
Decision Support Systems
GSFC Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information
Services Center (DISC) Distributed Active Archive
Center (DAAC) teng_at_disc.gsfc.nasa.gov
William Teng1,2, Hualan Rui1,2, Naphtali Rishe3,
Robert Tetrault4 (1NASA/GES DISC DAAC, 2
SSAI, 3Florida International Univ., 4USDA/FAS)
16th ESIP Federation Assembly Meeting, January
4-6, 2006
The amount and variety of information that can be
extracted from NASA satellite data form a rich
resource that is largely untapped by the
applications user community. In part, this is
because of the complexity and cost of using such
data. Many approaches, such as subsetting, have
been taken to ameliorate this situation. Mostly,
however, they have not sufficiently addressed the
core needs of the applications community. The
latter is generally not interested in the data
per se (e.g., how they are processed), but rather
in the specific measurements (e.g., surface rain)
from the data, which can be infused in some
decision support system. These measurements
should ideally be seamlessly accessible. To
rapidly bridge the gap between NASA information
systems and services and the practical needs of
the applications (and research) community, the
Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information
Services Center (GES DISC) has collaborated with
the Florida International University High
Performance Database Research Center (FIU HPDRC)
and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign
Agricultural Service (USDA FAS) to demonstrate
the feasibility of making NASA data more easily
and seamlessly accessible via the Web, from
within the FIUs TerraFly and the FAS Crop
Explorer environments, respectively.
The USDA FAS works to improve foreign market
access for U.S. products, build new markets,
improve the competitive position of U.S.
agriculture in the global marketplace, and
provide food aid and technical assistance to
foreign countries. The FAS Crop Explorer provides
near-real-time global crop condition information
based on satellite imagery and weather data.
Thematic maps of major crop growing regions
depict vegetative vigor, precipitation,
temperature, and soil moisture. Time-series
charts show growing season data for specific
agro-meteorological zones. Regional crop
calendars and crop area maps are also available
for selected regions of major agricultural
significance.
The GES DISC provides science data support for
NASA Earth Science data, including innovative
ways to manage, archive, and distribute the data,
customer-focused user support, and reusable
services and tools, for a wide range of science
and applications users. Giovanni is one such tool
for enhancing the accessibility and usability of
NASA data. It integrates various components to
support simple but powerful Web interfaces that
allow users to perform interactive visualization
and analysis online without downloading any data.
The Giovanni family of instances currently
provides this capability for data from AIRS, MLS,
MODIS, TOMS OMI, TRMM, and UARS HALOE, as well
agriculture- and ocean color-related project data.
The FIU HPDRCs state-of-the-art TerraFly,
developed in partnership with NASA, has, since
1996, helped NASA fulfill its strategic remote
sensing goals by delivering accurate geospatial
data and imagery to science research and
applications user communities. TerraFly is based
on innovative semantic database technologies for
data management and a rich set of tools for
disseminating geospatial information via the
Internet. TerraFly enables users to fly over
and manipulate the data retrieved from the
database, which contains textual,
remotely-sensed, and vector data (graphical
maps), via applets using any standard Web browser
(i.e., no specialized software is needed).
TerraFly is extremely popular with its diverse
user communities (some 10,000 unique users per
day) and is a NASA 2004 Spinoff.
http//disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/agriculture/ais_sum.shtm
l
The Agricultural Information System (AIS) is part
of the NASA-funded Agriculture REASoN CAN project
to make NASA Earth Science data more accessible
and usable by the agricultural user community.
Ongoing work include developing
agriculture-related products, developing the AIS,
and integrating project results into existing
operational Decision Support Systems. The
seamless access to NASA TRMM data from within the
USDA FAS Crop Explorer is a major part of this
project.
GIOVANNI
Other TerraFly Data PRISM Precipitation, USGS
River Gauge Data
GES-DISC Interactive Online Visualization and
Analysis Infrastructure The Bridge between Data
and Science
Other Crop Explorer Data MODIS Images, Reservoir
Heights
http//www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/cropexplorer/
http//terrafly.fiu.edu/
AFWA (Air Force Weather Agency) Precipitation
Daily gridded estimates by blending data from
SSM/I, GOES, Meteosat, and GMS Real Time
Nephanalysis Cloud Model (RTNEPH) and WMO
stations. Decadal precipitation is summed from
daily values.
Giovanni Architecture
http//agdisc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Giovanni/archives.3B42
_V6_dekad.shtml
Rainfall area plot and ASCII output for Central
Africa, July 2005
TRMM precipitation (NASA/Giovanni) maps can be
seamlessly accessed for comparison with AFWA and
WMO precipitation data used by USDA/FAS analysts.
User clicks on a "details" button in the GeoQuery
output, which hyperlinks to Giovanni and, in this
case, displays a month-to-date TRMM plot.
From the Environmental Data section of the
PointData page, user submits a TerraFly GeoQuery,
"100 nearest TRMM cells where the daily
precipitation yesterday was between 148.98 and
160.41 mm," which, in this case, returns 14 found
records.
Giovanni can be customized to support new
parameters, such as available soil water, growing
season water surplus or deficit, seasonal
anomalies, and percent departure.
WMO (World Meteorological Organization)
Precipitation Daily ground station data from
WMO Global Telecommunication System (GTS).
Decadal precipitation is summed from daily values.
Crop Explorer analyst clicks on MPA Accumulated
Rainfall Maps, which hyperlinks to Giovanni and
retrieves, for the same geographic area and
temporal period, a TRMM accumulated rainfall plot
with the same color scale.
User hyperlinks to a TerraFly PointData page,
which shows a NASA mosaic of Landsat 5 imagery
overlain with the names of roads, cities, NASA
PRISM mean annual precipitation model (shaded
areas), and TRMM rainfall of the previous day.
Relevant NASA Applications of National Priority
Agricultural Efficiency, Disaster Management,
Ecological Forecasting, Homeland Security, and
Public Health
Giovanni user displays a TRMM accumulated
rainfall plot and clicks on the TerraFly deep
link for more information about the displayed
area, centered over the plot center, or over any
arbitrary user-clicked point within the plot.
Location of the sub-region in Argentina for the
rain rate analyses.
Acknowledgments This work is partially supported
by NASA REASoN CAN 02-OES-01. We acknowledge the
contributions of our colleagues from the GES
DISC Steve Kempler, Zhong Liu, Long Chiu, Chai
Lim, and Steve Berrick. Graphics support by Edee
Ocampo.
Seamless Integration a key to enhancing access
to NASA data from existing operational Decision
Support Systems