Expressions of Intent for International Polar Year 2007-2008 Activities

Expression of Interest Details

PROPOSAL INFORMATION

EarthSLOT: an Earth Science, Logistics and Outreach Terrainbase for the IPY  (EarthSLOT)

Outline
Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a web-site where you could interactively fly yourself from outer-space down to the lip of a crevasse on an arctic glacier, all in 3D with video game quality? And how about if on that glacier you could see the locations of weather stations, such that you could click on them and see the latest data in real-time? Wouldn’t it be even cooler if every day you could do the same thing but with an updated satellite image of the Arctic, or monitor the real-time GPS progress of a scientific ice breaker crushing its way through the sea ice? Or how about if you could fly from glacier to ice breaker, while at the same time controlling the screens of 20 school children in a grade school on the other side of the planet? And then fly from that ice-breaker to any other location on the planet, whether it’s another IPY project site or your own backyard? What if the software could access, query and display any geospatial data archived as part of IPY using any standard archive and metadata format? This scenario does not describe the future, but what is available today at www.earthslot.org. With only minor adjustments and additional staffing, it can serve as THE central science integration and outreach tool for the IPY, putting the excitement of polar science onto the laptops of the next generation of polar researchers via the internet. The project is already funded by the US National Science Foundation and aims to serve in this role long before the other projects of the IPY actually begin in 2007. EarthSLOT is a service. The essential idea is that we handle the expensive and complicated work by making various combinations of imagery and elevation data available on-line, leaving others to do the easy and fun part which is adding the locations of their survey stakes and weather stations, adding moving airplanes or boats, adding photos and video, etc. Scientists and students can do this completely independently of us, thus distributing the work-load widely and to the appropriate people, or they can fund us to do so. Similarly, national and international IPY science management offices can add much of the logistical, science integration, and outreach content on their own, or they can fund us to do so. In this way, EarthSLOT grows from the ground up as a community effort for supporting IPY, just as it is beginning to do now for the US NSF’s arctic research program.

What significant advance(s) in relation to the IPY themes and targets can be anticipated from this project?
EarthSLOT is a revolutionary application. It has the same basic functionality as an IMS, but with the added feature of interactive 3D, video game quality. It can query any SDE database or serve imagery from a WMS or Oracle server. It is our belief that EarthSLOT is not only an improvement over IMSs for public use, but is serious competition for Nintendos and Game Boys, such that it will draw repeat users to the site because of its inherent interest and ease of use. Once users are there, they will find links that will help them explore the Arctic and Antarctic – links they otherwise would never see through typical discovery via internet surfing. That is, EarthSLOT is also a hook that can be used to draw the public towards IPY links.

What international collaboration is involved in this project?
International collaborations with EarthSLOT can happen anywhere there is an internet connection. We hope to build strong links with each nation’s IPY committee, as well as the international coordinating committee, such that they can encourage individual scientists to get involved.

FIELD ACTIVITY DETAILS

Geographical location(s) for the proposed field activities:
EarthSLOT is by nature global. However, any internet connection in the world can be used to either access it or add data to it.

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

Significant facilities will be required for this project:
None. Rather than require logistical support, EarthSLOT provides logistical support to all of the other projects through 3D visualization of project sites and their data, as well as various thematic layers such as towns, airports, and rivers.

Will the project leave a legacy of infrastructure?
No. But it can serve as a 3D front-end access-port for any national or international data archive, while also incorporating video, voice-overs, or other animations to help describe those datasets. It can also merge and serve data of any spatial resolution directly from archive centers.

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

While this project requires no logistical support on its own, many field projects may want to provide a little additional funding for accessing and contributing to it from the field. For example, adding daily updates from their expedition, real-time GPS tracking, etc.

Has the project been "endorsed" at a national or international level?
No. While no projects are being endorsed by the US national committee, this project is already funded through the US National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs for a similar purpose. For IPY we simply hope to expand our scope, collaborators, and funding internationally.

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?
YES

This project has already received base funding from the US National Science Foundation. With the IPY blessing, we will seek additional funding from US Federal sources, as well as other international agencies.

How will the project be organised and managed?
The project will be led by Dr. Matt Nolan at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who conceived and created EarthSLOT about a year ago. We will employ a technician full-time to deal with acquiring, merging and serving imagery and elevation data, and a small army of undergraduate students to work with scientists and science management offices to ensure that as much IPY-specific content gets on-line. We hope to interface with all other GIS initiatives and protocols for standardizations.

What are the initial plans of the project for addressing the education, outreach and communication issues outlined in the Framework document?
The primary goal of EarthSLOT is to address these issues of education, outreach, and communication. Initially we will serve as a geographic coordination tool for IPY projects, as well as an access portal to data sets relevant to IPY and its logistics (like weather data, airstrip locations, etc). This initial effort will also serve as important form of public outreach.

What are the initial plans of the project to address data management issues (as outlined in the Framework document?
EarthSLOT will not be a long-term archive of data. Rather it will access archived data in a user-friendly way, through well-established data-protocols such as SDE and WMS. Some data will likely not be archived, however, such as video clips, pictures, animations, and voice-overs that will be linked within the applications, since they are not suitable for national archiving. At the end of IPY, a series of EarthSLOT IPY DVDs will be produced, that will contain these data and highlights of the project along with a free viewer in a form easily distributed or archived for future use, and we hope that the on-line environment can be maintained indefinitely afterwards.

How is it proposed to fund the project?
We expect continued funding from the US National Science Foundation, as well as NASA and NOAA in the US. Hopefully international support can be realized through proposal written by scientists and science management offices in those countries.

Is there additional information you wish to provide?
A major underlying goal of this project is to demonstrate that the Arctic is far behind the rest of the planet in terms of having high resolution imagery and elevation data. The power of EarthSLOT must be seen rather than described. Please visit www.earthslot.org and form your own impression of the potential of this tool and service for IPY, rather than take my word for it here. All you will need is a PC and a reasonably fast internet connection.

PROPOSER DETAILS

Dr  Matt Nolan
University of Alaska Fairbanks
455 Duckering Bdlg
Institute of Northern Engineering
99775-5860
USA

Tel: 907 474 2467
Mobile: no
Fax: 907 474 7979
Email:

Other project members and their affiliation