Moving Beyond IGY: An electronic Geophysical Year (eGY) Concept

D.N. Baker

Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics

University of Colorado - Boulder

Science Community Needs

The UN and ICSU are now planning major scientific programs.

The US science community and other government agencies are currently planning activities to support these international programs.

The US science community needs agency support for its activities to be successful.

Planning for International Programs

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, Planet Earth will interpret the history of the Earth and use that knowledge as a basis for forecasting likely future events

International Heliophysical Year – IHY will be sponsored by ICSU, with the goal of fostering international cooperation in the study of heliophysical phenomena now and in the future

International Polar Year – IPY will be sponsored by ICSU, and will expand understanding of the key roles of the polar regions in the globally-linked environment

Electronic Geophysical Year – The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics is sponsoring, and ICSU will endorse, the eGY to promote a revolution in geoscientific data availability and access worldwide. This is a coordinated international initiative, making full use of the capabilities offered by modern information management and digital communications. The US is an active partner and it is timely for agencies to have an influence on this planning

Planning for National Programs

International Polar Year International Heliophysical Year

electronic Geophysical Year

An Opportunity for NOAA/NESDISWhy NOAA should lead the planning for the eGY Program within the

US?• eGY has a strong environmental observing program focus with

– IAGA studying the solar and space environment, – IAMAS studying the atmosphere, – IAPSO studying the oceans, – IAG studying geodesy, and – IASPEI studying earthquakes.

• eGY has a strong environmental data management focus.• eGY proposes to promote Virtual Observatories that

– Facilitate the use of all data managed by data centers, centers of data or individual researchers for a particular region; either scientific regions like the Van Allen radiation belts or a geographical region like the western Pacific

– Merge data with data assimilation models and with physical models to assess the state of the environment for retrospective studies or real-time applications.

Virtual ObservatoriesThe best way to describe a virtual observatory is to give an example.• The Virtual Radiation Belt Observatory

– Assemble 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 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

• Existing virtual observatory systems include the Virtual Solar Observatory, the Virtual Ocean Observatory, etc.

Virtual Radiation Belt ObservatoryData system that meets engineering, operational, and scientific needs.

– 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.

User Interfaceand Displays

Near Real Time Data

Long Term Archival Data

Gateway to distributeddata

ClimatologyModels

Nowcast/ForecastModels

GOESGOES POESPOES

• CISM End-to-End Models

• “Assimilation” of Extreme-Event Data

( Janet Green et al.)

Virtual Observatories• Access through a

browser or an Application Programming Interface (API)

• “Small box” uses registry of XML data service schema to construct appropriate queries for each relevant data service

• API or browser can refine queries

• Final data transfer is direct to requestor (no middleman)

Next Steps

• Lead an environmental observing systems planning committee with NESDIS, NOAA, NASA, NSF, NRC, etc. participation

• Develop the US Program Plan for the Electronic Geophysical Year, eGY

• Obtain interagency approval for the Program Plan • Incorporate the Program Plan with budget in the report to

Congress as required by the IGY-2 resolution by August 18th.

• ? Should the NAS present the program to Congress?