Expressions of Intent for International Polar Year 2007-2008 Activities

Expression of Interest Details

PROPOSAL INFORMATION

Integrated Climate-Change Geospatial Information Services System for Antarctica  (ICCISSA)

Outline
The Antarctic climate system, the major heat sink of the planet, is changing. However, its changes are difficult to evaluate in a global context. Information about this regional climate system, generated by various means from satellite remote sensing to field observations and modeling, is scattered across many organizations around the world. The information is diverse in terms of data formats, projection, spatial/temporal resolution and coverages, quality control and validation, availability and access, as well as metadata. To develop a more holistic understanding of Antarctic climate change, it is necessary to facilitate integration of the massive amount of climate information and its rapid geospatial analysis. Therefore, we will develop an open, interoperable, web-based Antarctic Climate Change Information Services System that: (1) provides a standard-based framework and tools for access to and integration of distributed Antarctic climate-change information, (2) facilitates advanced geospatial queries and analysis of the information, and (3) provides personalized, on-demand delivery of the information in an interoperable way. The ICCISSA climate application server will be composed of a geospatial web server and services tier, an applications tier, and a client tier. The geospatial web-server tier will provide map, feature, and coverage services to query, extract, reformat, and load widely distributed data. The servers will provide on-demand access to: (1) physical and chemical climate measurements from land- sea-, air-, and space-borne instruments, (2) high-level data products derived either automatically or by applying processing services, and (3) 4-D atmosphere-, ocean-, and ice- model results. An enterprise-relational database will store temporarily: (1) climate data to be pre-processed before input to web geospatial services, (2) selected products derived from analyses, and (3) metadata catalogues. The application tier will provide applications that perform geospatial data query and extraction, processing, analysis, and knowledge management. These services will be self-contained, self-describing, modular applications that can be published and dynamically invoked through open, interoperable protocols across the Web. The services will range from simple data-process services to intermediate information extraction to high-level modeling algorithms. The services can be dynamically chained to perform multi-step tasks. The client tier will support 4-D query devices, backed by metadata catalogues, for initial information evaluation and advanced visualization of extracted, indexed information. The mulitprotocol client will be able to invoke all services in the ICCISSA and other compliant systems. The client will also provide an interface for users to construct and test new services.

What significant advance(s) in relation to the IPY themes and targets can be anticipated from this project?
The proposed work will facilitate Antarctic climate change research in new ways and so is central to all IPY themes. The system will provide capability to identify, obtain, and integrate spatio-temporal data and model results from all climate disciplines in appropriate formats. The system will enable the geospatial analysis of this information by providing geospatial services and the framework for addition of new services through an interoperable web interface. The system will bring the power of geographic information science to the study of Antarctic climate change which will attract more people to the field and insure that Antarctic climate change is better understood by society.

What international collaboration is involved in this project?
The Chinese Antarctic Program and Canadian Antarctic researchers are interested in this program.

FIELD ACTIVITY DETAILS

Geographical location(s) for the proposed field activities:
NA

Approximate timeframe(s) for proposed field activities:
Arctic: n/a
Antarctic: n/a

Significant facilities will be required for this project:
NA

Will the project leave a legacy of infrastructure?
NA

How is it envisaged that the required logistic support will be secured?

Has the project been "endorsed" at a national or international level?
No

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND STRUCTURE

Is the project a short-term expansion (over the IPY 2007-2008 timeframe) of an existing plan, programme or initiative or is it a new autonomous proposal?
New

How will the project be organised and managed?
UNH will coordinate: (1) scientific content, (2) metadata development, (3) user-community input, (4) scientific objectives of queries and algorithms, (5) development and testing of all middleware. GMU will: (1) further develop Open GIS web services for Antarctic information (e.g., formats, dimensions, metadata, geographic map projections), (2) design and program content-based queries, (3) develop web-interfaces, and (4) collaborate in development of middleware service modules and visualization tools. St. George Consulting will: (1) design technical systems architecture, (2) implement the ArcGIS program suite, (3) design and implement the spatial database and (4) develop Internet retrieval tools.

What are the initial plans of the project for addressing the education, outreach and communication issues outlined in the Framework document?
We will hold workshops with the user community to develop user-based guidelines. We will conduct advanced geospatial technology institutes where selected students and teachers study Antarctic climate change as they learn geospatial analysis techniques. Partners in the project will conduct demonstration workshops at numerous locations.

What are the initial plans of the project to address data management issues (as outlined in the Framework document?
See above

How is it proposed to fund the project?
A proposal for this project will be submitted to the US NSF.

Is there additional information you wish to provide?
None

PROPOSER DETAILS

Dr Michael Prentice
362 Morse Hall
University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH
03824
USA

Tel: 603-862-4783
Mobile: no
Fax: 603-862-2124
Email:

Other project members and their affiliation