NESDIS Data User Workshop Poster Information 6/6/2003

1\) NOAA's new priorities for the 21st Century. (NESDIS) Presented by
Dane Clark

The 21st century poses complex challenges for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Every aspect of NOAA's mission --
ranging from managing coastal and marine resources to predicting changes
in the Earth's environment -- faces a new urgency, given intensifying
national needs related to the economy, the environment, and public
safety. NOAA has a new Strategic Plan to respond to these challenges. It
forges a path for meeting the needs of America today and addressing the
critical issues of tomorrow. One of NOAA's new priorities will be to
build an Integrated Global Environmental Observation and Data Management
System that will enhance NOAA's ability to protect lives and property,
expand economic opportunities, understand climate variability, and
promote healthy ecosystems. Since operational environmental satellites
provide a wealth of environmental measurements, NOAA is very interested
in hearing from national and international satellite data users -
specifically their requirements for new satellite products, data access,
data archiving and other future needs.

2\) Expanding E-Government. (NCDC) Presented by Pete Steurer

Starting in 1996 under the National Virtual Data Systems (NVDS)
initiative, a dramatic shift toward online ordering of environmental
data and products has occurred. Currently, 70% of all orders for NESDIS
data are placed via the web replacing the more traditional offline
access to information via telephone, letter, email, and fax. By 2005, it
is estimated that 95% of all requests will be processed via the web. It
is anticipated that the preference for web access will continue but not
completely replace traditional person to person access.

2a) How Climate Data Are Used in Our National Economy. (NCDC) Presented
by Pete Steurer.

In today's high technological world it is vital for the NCDC to be
"wired" to the world's weather and climate observing system and to the
users of climate data. Serving customers, Americans and international
users from all walks of life, is a major source of pride among staff at
NCDC. Access to weather and climate data is vital to many different
sectors of the national and global economy. Some of these sectors which
apply weather and climate data to various research and development
projects include: agriculture, finance, transportation, litigation &
insurance, communication and manufacturing, public utilities, housing
and natural hazards/mitigation.

2b) Investigating the Economic Value of NCDC Products to the Energy
Industry. (NCDC) Presented by Todd A. Doehring, Steven T. Sonka, Sharon
K. Bard, and Stanley T. Changnon (Centrec Consulting Corp.)

An extensive case study analysis was conducted of a major energy
company. The analysis provides an extremely detailed report of the
energy company\'s use of NCDC resources and the application to which
those resources were applied. The absence of such information would
curtail its effective operations. Indeed because of the existing
regulatory needs, the Energy Company and firms like it in the industry
would need to secure other means to obtain that information if it were
not available from NESDIS. These resources are made available to the
Energy Company through NCDC at a cost of slightly more than \$5,000 per
year. An exploratory economic analysis was conducted to provide
estimates of the costs that would be required to provide the information
resources now provided by NESDIS. Using relationships based upon the
Energy Company\'s cost of data acquisition and the Energy Company\'s
relative market share, a cost-benefit ratio of 495 was determined. (For
every \$1 that the Energy Company spends in acquiring data, they are
receiving a potential benefit from not having to spend \$495 to acquire
that data on its own.)  When extended to the entire industry, the
potential benefits are approximately \$65 million per year. It should be
noted that for purposes of this study the definition of the energy
industry relates only to electricity and natural gas providers and not
the entire energy industry as broadly defined

3\) NESDIS Customers: Are They Satisfied? Preliminary Results from the
Customer Satisfaction Survey Presented by Tami Creech

A customer satisfaction survey was sent to users who requested data from
the NESDIS Data Centers and the Office of Satellite Data Processing and
Distribution in 2002. The survey asked users to rate their satisfaction
on issues such as quality of product and service received, accessibility
of data, and timeliness of response. The survey also asked users to
identify the type of data received, the primary use of the product, as
well as the benefit of the data to the user or user's company.
Preliminary results indicate that a majority of users are satisfied or
extremely satisfied with the product and service they received while
other users mentioned areas for improvement.

4\) NCDC's New Web Site- Easier Access to Online Data and Products
(NCDC) Presented by Vernell Woldu, Dave Anderson and Dave Smith

NCDC is in the process of revising its web site, to provide for more
user-friendly access to its many online datasets, products,
publications, and web pages.  This poster provides a \"sneak preview\"
of the planned new look and feel for the web site, after several
iterations by the NCDC web design team.  We hope to have the new site
online this fall.  We will be soliciting user feedback, and appreciate
any comments and suggestions you may have now and in the future.

5\) Latest Developments on the Climate Reference Network. (NCDC)
Presented by Sharon LeDuc

The U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) is a network of climate
stations now being developed as part of a National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) initiative. Its primary goal is to
provide long-term homogeneous observations of temperature and
precipitation that can be coupled to long-term historical observations
for the detection and attribution of present and future climate change.
 Data from the USCRN will be used in operational climate monitoring
activities and for placing current climate anomalies into an historical
perspective. The USCRN will also provide the United States with a
reference network that meets the requirements of the Global Climate
Observing System (GCOS). If fully implemented, the network will consist
of about 300+ stations nationwide.

5a) Climate Monitoring Activities at NCDC. Presented by Dave Easterling.

NCDC's Climate Monitoring Branch (CMB) monitors the US and global
climate on an ongoing basis to provide historical perspective on current
and evolving climate conditions. Analyses are made available through
monthly, seasonal and annual State of the Climate reports. The CMB is
involved in national and international climate programs to access
weather and climate impact on economies and societies. The State of the
Climate reports and other climate monitoring products are available at:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/monitoring.html

6\) NEXRAD Radar Data Services at the National Climatic Data Center.
(NCDC) Presented by Steve DelGreco

The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) currently receives Weather
Surveillance Radar -- 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D) level II (base) data from
120 National Weather Service (NWS), 12 Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) and 26 Department of Defense (DOD) sites on 8mm tape or online
\[3\]. The NCDC robotic mass storage system warehouses approximately 900
terabytes of Level II data and grows annually at a rate of 60 terabytes
a year (120 terabytes with offsite backup). Over the next several years
enhanced radar technologies, such as dual polarization, will be
implemented and growth of the radar digital archive may increase by a
factor of 26. The NCDC is partnering with the Radar Operations Center,
the National Severe Storms Lab, the University of Oklahoma and Unidata
on the Collaborative Radar Acquisition Field Test (CRAFT) project \[6\].
CRAFT started as a grass roots effort to transmit level II data
electronically, from 6 WSR-88D sites directly to the NCDC robotic mass
storage system. To date, 59 of the 158 WSR-88D sites are transmitting
level II data in real time to NCDC (Figure 1). NCDC has truly become a
"One Stop Shop" for WSR-88D radar users. Direct digital access to level
II radar inventories, data, and visualization software are available, at
no cost to the user, via the NCDC radar resources web page,

(http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/radar/radarresources). Large data volume
requests that, in the past, took weeks to months to disseminate are
accessible in minutes to hours. Plans for future user services include a
web interfaced browsing tool to visualize inventoried radar data and
building radar climatologies based on specific weather phenomena.

7\) Climate Database Modernization Program Access to Historical Data and
Records. (NCDC) Presented by Tom Ross

NOAA's Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP) has a very simple
goal: to make major climate databases available via the world wide web.
As the CDMP program matured the program grew to include tasks involving
five NOAA line offices. The program also grew internationally with data
modernization efforts underway in six African countries. The amount of
images on-line in 1992 reached 36 million records totaling over three
terabytes of data. Modernization efforts include the keying of
observations; the imaging of original records whether on paper,
microform, or photographs; the vectorizing of shorelines and the
digitizing of analog records. The CDMP program supports over 40
different NOAA tasks ranging from imaging historical photographs of
Alaskan glaciers, to keying weather observations from the Forts
collection (1820-1895), making the Daily Weather Maps and Monthly
Weather Review available via the World wide Web, to imaging Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) film.

8\) Remote Sensing Services and Applications. (NCDC) Presented by John
Bates and Axel Graumann

NESDIS' National Climatic Data Center is expanding its activities in the
scientific stewardship of satellite and radar data. Scientific
stewardship will provide for the long-term care of these remote sensing
data sets by helping satisfy user needs in following areas: 1) providing
enhanced near real-time monitoring of observing system performance, 2)
documenting Earth system variability and change on global, regional, and
local scales, 3) providing, in collaboration with the user community,
algorithms to ensure that the understanding of key climate processes can
be derived combined satellite, radar, and in situ observations, 4)
optimizing data and information services to ensure that they are simple,
straightforward, direct and responsive to users, and 5) enabling and
facilitating future research.

9\) NOAA Paleoclimatology: Your Source for Pre-Instrumental Climate
Data. (NCDC) Presented by C. Mark Eakin and Mark McCaffrey

Paleoclimatology, the study of past climate variability using natural
records, provides important long-term perspectives on the dynamics of
the climate system. The Paleoclimatology Branch of the NOAA National
Climatic Data Center (NCDC), located on the Department of Commerce's
Boulder, Colorado campus, provides NOAA, the nation, and the world with
resources from the global paleoclimatological research community that
extends the climate record far beyond the instrumental record. The
systematic monitoring and tracking of weather and climate using
instruments has been limited to the past 100-150 years. To extend that
record, paleoclimatologists use natural "proxy" recorders such as tree
rings, cores taken from corals and ice caps, sediments from lakes and
oceans, pollen from plants, vegetation fossilized in packrat dung heaps,
and many others, to provide data on the Earth's changing climate and
environment. NOAA Paleoclimatology serves as a global clearninghouse for
paleoclimatogical data and information. In addition to being the World
Data Center for Paleoclimatology, the Paleoclimatology Branch supports
several international efforts to study past, present and future climate
change such as the World Climate Research Programme's project on Climate
Variability (CLIVAR), the Earth System History Program at the National
Science Foundation (ESH), and the International Geosphere-Biosphere
Programme's project on Past Global Changes (PAGES). The Paleoclimatology
Branch plans to continue to support the international research
community, develop ways to support a "paleo perspective" on
environmental literacy, and look for ways to more fully integrate the
paleoenvironmental proxies with the modern instrumental record so that
people around the world can gain a better understanding of climate
changes and their human dimensions.

10\) Cryospheric Data for Research and Monitoring. (NSIDC) Presented by
Florence Fetterer , et al

The National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology,
Boulder (NSIDC/WDC) was established by NOAA as a national information
and referral center in support of polar and cryospheric research. 
Scientific stewardship is central to this role:  NSIDC maximizes the
value of data for science by developing, documenting, preserving, and
widely distributing digital and analog data sets; by conducting
research; and through participation in national and international
science planning and observation network coordination efforts.  NSIDC is
engaged in activities designed to improve our understanding of recent
changes in the cryosphere.  These changes include reductions in snow
cover and glacier area, thawing permafrost, disintegration of Antarctic
peninsula ice shelves, decline in sea ice extent and changes in the
distribution of ice thickness.  NSIDC\'s data products from operational
satellites such as ice extent and albedo from the Defense Meteorological
Satellite Program and NOAA polar orbiters help quantify these changes.
Station data sets of long-term observations, such as snow depth and
river freeze/break up dates from the former Soviet Union, put changes in
a historical context.  New products from instruments on-board NASA Earth
Observing System satellites, such as snow cover from the Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, will allow NSIDC and other
investigators to monitor snow and ice with improved resolution,
frequency, and accuracy.

11\) Exposing the U.S. Coastal Zone. (NGDC) Presented by David Divins,
Dan Metzger, John Campagnoli, and Matt Kuhn

The Coastal Relief Model developed by the National Geophysical Data
Center (NGDC) is an integration of land elevations from the USGS 3
arc-second Digital Elevation Model (DEM) combined with a co-registered 3
arc-second bathymetric model derived from National Ocean Service
Hydrographic Data Base (NOSHDB) and multibeam bathymetry surveys, where
available. This integration of coastal data represents not only the
merger of elevations and depths, but also a merger of different
cultures, conventions, datums, and measurement methods. Our intent is to
initially develop a product accurate to the 3 arc-second,
latitude-longitude grid and then improve and enhance it as data,
technologies, and resources permit. The demand for such an integrated
product, readily imported into graphics and GIS systems, is large and
continues to grow, as those systems proliferate and become much more
user friendly. We are providing user-friendly Coastal Data to match.

12\) Data for Decision Makers. (NGDC) Presented by Susan McLean and
Paula Dunbar

Land Geophysics data from the National Geophysical Data Center include
discipline areas of topography, natural hazards, geomagnetism, gravity,
geothermal, and ecosystems. These data are used by scientists,
researchers, civil engineers, and others for land use planning, hazards
mitigation, resource exploration, navigation, and numerous other
applications. Data products produced include CD-ROMs, posters,
slide-sets, publications, and custom Web applications.

13\) Enterprise GIS (NGDC) Presented by Ted Haberman, Geospatial Data
Services Group

NESDIS manages one of the largest collections of environmental data in
the world. The systems used to manage those data have developed over the
years in response to specialized needs of data managers and users. This
evolution has resulted in a number of "stovepipe" systems that make it
difficult or impossible to share data. Geospatial databases and
Geographic Information Systems are powerful tools for data sharing and
integration. NESDIS is developing data management systems built using
these tools and working with other NOAA Line Offices to build geospatial
data foundations for all of NOAA.

14\) Space Weather Data at NGDC. (NGDC) Presented by Dan Wilkinson,
Helen Coffey, and Ray Conkright

NGDC's Solar-Terrestrial Physics Division archives, analyzes, and
distributes space weather data of the environment from the Earth's upper
atmosphere to the Sun. NGDC maintains the sole archive of space
environment data collected on NOAA, GOES and DMSP satellites. Principle
data sets are collected by satellites, used by NOAA's space weather
forecast center and received from government and academic observatories
and World Data Centers. The SPIDR system facilitates user online access,
analysis and display of archival data. Analysis products include the
assimilation, testing and evaluation of physical models driven by data
in the archives.

15\) Land Products from DMSP Data at NGDC. (NGDC) Presented by Chris
Elvidge and Ed Erwin

NGDC archives all scientific data recorded on DMSP satellites since
March 1992. The Operational Linescan System has the unique capability of
routinely imaging visible and infrared emissions (and reflectance)
during daytime and nighttime. Analysis of the nighttime lights yield
both the location of, and changes in, cities, wildfires, gas flares, and
the aurora. The intensity of the lights can be used to estimate a number
of socio-economic parameters from population and economic vitality to
carbon emissions and urban sprawl.

16\) Digital Ice Climatology Data: A New Dataset for Arctic Climate
Studies: Presented by: Kim Partington, Tom Flynn, Doug Lamb, Cheryl
Bertoia,Kyle Dedrick and Selina Nauman (OSDPD)

Arctic sea ice plays a key role in the climate system, by acting as the
interface between a warm ocean and a cold atmosphere in an area where
models predict that surface air temperatures are likely to rise more
than anywhere else as a result of CO2-warming (Rind et al., 1995).
Establishing the true pattern of behavior of the sea ice in this region
over the last few decades is critical to simulating correctly the role
of sea ice in models of future climate. Recently released operational
ice charts from the US National Ice Center provide significant insight
into the late twentieth century behavior of northern hemisphere sea ice.
Three modes of variability are observed from empirical orthogonal
analysis of these ice charts covering the period 1972-94. These are
shown to indicate respectively (a) the advective response of the sea ice
to the North Atlantic Oscillation, (b) the response of the sea ice to
freshwater inputs from the Bering Strait and Siberia and (c) the
conditioning of summer sea ice coverage in the eastern Arctic by the
North Atlantic Oscillation from the previous winter. Evidence is
presented that there is an atmospheric response to the ice coverage
anomalies, in particular through the generation of cyclones.

17\) Satellite Products and Services of the NOAA/NESDIS Satellite
Services Division for Support of Near Real-Time Environmental
Applications. (OSDPD) Presented by Brian Hughes

The Satellite Services Division serves a diverse community of customers
by providing real time and near real time access to high quality remote
sensing environmental data, products, and services. The Division
operates a system that provides real time global geostationary and polar
orbiting satellite data to users. The Division is made up of two
branches, the Interactive Processing Branch (IPB) and the Satellite
Analysis Branch (SAB). IPB produces automated real time products from
geostationary and polar orbiting environmental satellites to support
global weather forecast models and the research community. SAB produces
interpretive real time and near real time analyses of global
geostationary and polar orbiting satellite data to support disaster
mitigation and warning services for U.S. Federal agencies and the
international community.

18\) Applications of NOAA MODIS Near Real Time Data (OSDPD) Presented by
Gene Legg, (NOAA), Paul Haggerty and Kristina Sprietzer, Science and
Technology Corporation

The NOAA/NESDIS MODIS Near Real Time system was designed under Computer
Sciences Corporation\'s (CSC) Central Satellite Data Processing (CSDP)
contract. The system processes data globally, with 10 product suites for
the MODIS instrument data on both the TERRA and AQUA satellites.

This poster will present the highlights and applications of MODIS near
real time data such as monitoring smoke dispersion of forest fires, and
the performance of a near real time system in terms of data transfer and
product generation.

19\) NOAA Polar Instrument Data Processing for Level 1B Data Users
(OSDPD) Presented by Emily D. Harrod, Arlington R. Morgan

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Information
Processing Division(IPD) receives and formats its raw polar spacecraft
instrument data into a user friendly level 1B format for distribution to
the data user community. This poster display illustrates the NOAA Polar
Instrument data processing system, the Quality Control monitoring and
trending analysis system, and sample products such as Sea Surface
Temperature, Vegetation Index, Soundings Moisture Profiles, Ozone,
Aerosol and Radiation Budget. The goal of IPD is to provide the polar
data user community with timely, accurate, and complete information in
the polar satellite level 1B data.

20\) Ocean Climate. (NODC) Presented by Syd Levitus

The World Ocean Database 2001 (WOD01) CD-ROM\'s, containing observed and
standard level profile, plankton and surface data, represent an update
of the World Ocean Database products first released as World Ocean Atlas
1994 (WOA94), and followed by World Ocean Database 1998 (WOD98). WOD01
expands on WOD98 by including new variables and data types. During the
past three years, the number of data sets received at NODC/WDC, Silver
Spring (National Oceanographic Data Center / World Data Center for
Oceanography, Silver Spring) has increased, from over 5 million to 7
million stations, as a result of projects such as the Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission (IOC) / NODC Global Oceanographic Data
Archaeology and Rescue project (GODAR), NODC Global Ocean Database
project, IOC World Ocean Database project, Global Temperature-Salinity
Profile Project (GTSPP), World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE),
Joint Global Ocean Flux Studies (JGOFS), Ocean Margin Experiment (OMEX),
and many others. The World Ocean Atlas 2001 (WOA01) contains statistics
and objectively analyzed fields for one-degree and five-degree squares
generated from World Ocean Database 2001 observed and standard level
flagged data. The ocean variables included in the atlas are: in-situ
temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, apparent oxygen utilization,
percent oxygen saturation, dissolved inorganic nutrients (phosphate,
nitrate, and silicate), chlorophyll at standard depth levels, and
plankton biomass integrated from 0 - 200 meters. The data and analyzed
fields, presented in WOD01 and WOA01 are critical for understanding
changes in the distribution of these variables over the past decades and
for initiation and validation of biogeochemical numerical models.

21\) Sea Surface Temperature Climatologies. (NODC) Presented by Ken
Casey and Ed Kearns

A new reprocessing of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer
(AVHRR) data stream developed by the University of Miami s Rosenstiel
School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and the National Oceanographic
Data Center is now available. This reprocessing uses an improved version
of the Pathfinder algorithm and processing steps to produce twice-daily
global sea surface temperature (SST) and related parameters back to
1985, at a resolution of approximately 4 km, the highest possible for a
global AVHRR data set. Current key improvements over the original 9 km
Pathfinder SST data set include a more accurate, consistent land mask,
higher spatial resolution, and inclusion of sea ice information.
Additional improvements including better flagging of
aerosol-contaminated retrievals will be implemented in future
reprocessings of the satellite data. These improvements, example data
and applications, and data access techniques will be presented.

22\) Coral Reef Information System. (NODC) Presented by Anthony Picciolo

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Coral Reef
Information System (CoRIS) is the official NOAA system for managing
access to its coral reef data and information. CoRIS is a web-enabled,
GIS-enhanced, state-of-the-art information system utilizing a single web
portal to gain access to NOAA's coral reef data and information
holdings, activities, and library services. CoRIS supports NOAA's
contribution to the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force National Action Plan and
provides a rich offering of search tools to aid in the discovery and
interpretation of NOAA data and information on coral reef ecosystems and
adjacent interrelated habitats and communities. For many years NOAA has
conducted many coral reef - related activities that have deepened
scientific knowledge about coral reefs and produced a broad array of
data types and products. Data from projects such as coral reef mapping,
biological diversity studies, population surveys, climate studies, coral
reef monitoring programs, and coral reef bleaching forecasts are
available through CoRIS. NOAA's continuing research and monitoring
activities through the NOAA Coral Reef Program are producing new data
and data products that also will be available on CoRIS.

23\) Coastal Risk Atlas. (NCDDC) Presented by Russ Beard

U.S. natural disaster losses are estimated to be between \$10 billion
and \$50 billion annually, much of which are a result of coastal storms.
Communities that have undertaken hazard vulnerability assessments and
implemented mitigation measures have experienced significant economic,
environmental and quality of life benefits. The Coastal Risk Atlas (CRA)
is a project developed by the National Coastal Data Development Center
in collaboration with the NOAA Coastal Services Center. The CRA provides
a methodology and access to required hazards data via the internet so
that resource managers, emergency managers, and the public can assess
their community's vulnerability to coastal storms. The location of
critical facilities, infrastructure and sources of toxic release
relative to high-risk storm surge, wind and flood areas are assessed.
The distribution of vulnerable populations such as the elderly and poor,
significant environmental resources, and the vulnerability of primary
economic sectors are also included as issues in the assessment. Users
have the option of viewing the data through an internet map server or
downloading data for analysis using their own Geographical Information
System (GIS) aided by analysis tools available through the CRA website.
The effort was initiated for the Mississippi Gulf Coast as a pilot
project and will expand to remaining areas of the Gulf Coast through the
remainder of 2003.

24\) Coastal Data for the Integrated Ocean Observing System. (NCDDC)
Presented by Joe Stinus

Data that describes the interaction between land and sea along
America\'s coasts is extremely diverse. Coastal data is collected,
processed, and maintained by a variety of organizations that are
geographically distributed throughout the United States. These data sets
exist in many different formats, have different levels of quality
assurance and vary substantially in accessibility. The diverse and
distributed nature of coastal data, together with the advent of Internet
and computer technologies, have made the concept of a central coastal
data repository impractical. Yet, the need for access to local data for
regional, national, and global studies has increased as we have
recognized that most coastal problems extend far beyond traditional
natural and jurisdictional boundaries. To meet these challenges and take
advantage of new information technologies, the National Coastal Data
Development Center (NCDDC) employs a \"gateway\" concept to provide
access to coastal data that can be transmitted over the Internet. A
\"gateway\" is a software link between the data provider\'s server and
the NCDDC coastal data \"portal.\" Data consumers, employing the NCDDC
web portal and gateways can quickly bring together many types of data,
from many sources, to answer specific questions. One example of this
technology in action can be found in the Integrated Ocean Observing
System (IOOS) Gulf of Mexico node. Within the scope of this project,
Gulf of Mexico coastal oceanographic data has been "backbone enabled" to
provide single point access to historical and real time buoy data from
several different networks, along with Gulf-wide biological data. This
example shows how ready access to the coastal data network will support
decision-making policy, analysis of long-term change, post-event
assessment, monitoring, and prediction of coastal phenomena.