# Presentation: 582324

## Advances in Data Coordination for Establishing Heliophysics as a Basic Science 

- A Researcher’s Perspective in the Context of New Directions for the Field

## Topics

- Heliophysics as a basic science
- Great Observatory as aspect of larger endeavor
- Need for diverse data to establish universal laws
- Areas for advancement in data coordination
- Virtual observatories
- Data formats
- Data availability
- Informatics sessions at this meeting

## Heliophysics as a basic science

- Movement to establish what we do as a basic academic field
- Parker’s advocacy
- 2004 NRC report
- IHY science theme
- NASA strategy
- Funding justification
- Preservation and growth of the Great Observatory

## Parker’s Advocacy

**	****	**** **E. Parker, 1979
*Cosmical Magnetic Fields*

## Plasma Physics of the Local CosmosA scientific assessment and strategy for the study of magnetized plasmas

- Creation and annihilation of magnetic fields
- Dynamos
- Reconnection
- Formation of structures and transients
- Collisionless shocks
- Cellular structures and current sheets
- Boundary layers and flux ropes
- Cross-scale coupling
- Explosive energy conversion
- CMEs
- Substorms
- Plasma interactions
- Electromagnetic (non-contact)
- Flow-object
- Plasma-neutral
- Radiation-plasma
- Energetic particle acceleration

## Goal 1:  Develop the basic science of heliophysics through cross-disciplinary studies of universal processes
Selected Themes
Evolution and Generation of Magnetic Structures and Transients
Energy Transfer and Coupling Processes
Flows and Circulations
Boundaries and Interfaces

- Selected Themes
- Evolution and Generation of Magnetic Structures and Transients
- Energy Transfer and Coupling Processes
- Flows and Circulations
- Boundaries and Interfaces

- International Heliophysical Year Science Goals and Themes

- From http://ihy.gsfc.nasa.gov

## Justification for funding?

- Striving to establish heliophysics as a basic science may be the most viable way to maintain the health of the field
- Avoids slipping into role of applied heliophysics on demand without concurrent basic heliophysics support
- As the applied side of heliophysics grew strong through the focus on space weather in the 90s, so the basic side can grow strong through the new focus on universal laws
- New focus makes us relevant to the larger science endeavor

## Data Needs for Heliophysics

- Establishing heliophysics as a basic science calls for
- Discovery of universal physical laws that apply in diverse environments
- Comparative studies using diverse data sets
- Advancement in data management that facilitates usage by scientists from diverse fields
- Areas for advancement
- Virtual observatories
- Data formats
- Data availability

## Virtual Observatories

- Major advance in data availability occurred in the ISTP era in the ’90s, on websites like CDAWeb
- Virtual observatories are a welcome outgrowth
- Future efforts
- Promote one-on-one indoctrination
- Improve search engine (e.g., to recognize phenomenological terms like “coronal hole”)

## Data Formats

- Past experience:  Encountering Common Data Format (CDF) files
- Learn from manual?—written in computer jargon
- Learn from someone who knows
- Hire programmer or graduate student
- Now can get some help from NASA/GSFC web site, “Space Physics Guidelines for CDF”
- Recent experience:  Encountering Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) files
- Purchase “Liberator(!)” to view files in Adobe Photoshop
- Other help options available from NASA/GSFC web site

## Data Availability Problems

- Lack of documentation
- Files of excellent data exist without meaningful labels and physical units
- One must contact the P.I.’s graduate students, who pass on the information by word of mouth
- P.I. firewalls
- In some cases, P.I.s still maintain control of data in order that it be used accurately
- Too little support for organizing data

## Example

- Special note: We are in the process of re-organizing our file system. Some of the directories above may be empty.... The files are still available! They just haven't been moved into the proper directories yet. If you wish to search for these files on your own, please follow the directory structure on one of many scattered disks located _[here.](http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/wind3dp/data/disks)__... There is also an __[index](http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/wind3dp/data/index)__ directory that will provide clues to the location of individual files. __I apologize for this (temporary) inconvenience but there are literally tens of thousands of files that need to be moved and it is a slow process. _

## Conclusions

- Building heliophysics into a basic science with universal laws calls for comparative studies of data from a wide array of instruments in the Great Observatory
- Ways to facilitate usage of these data by researchers with diverse backgrounds are
- Provide software packages for data analysis in which the programming is transparent to the user
- Provide sufficient support for organizing and documenting data so that future generations can use it without help from the P.I. or his/her minions
- Give instructions in language that is not jargon

## Earth and Space Science Informatics (IN) Sessions

- All joint with SA, SM, and SH
- Wednesday afternoon through Friday morning
- For example, IN42A, IN43D:  Semantic Scientific Data Integration
- “The vast majority of data-driven science investigations of the Earth-Sun system are limited in their ability to effectively explore the most important (often most difficult) problems because they are forced to interconnect at the data-element, or syntactic, level rather than at a higher scientific, or semantic, level. In many cases, syntax-only interoperability IS the state-of-the-art. In order for scientists...to discover, access, and use data from unfamiliar sources, they are forced to learn details of the data schema, other people’s naming schemes and syntax decisions. The need is for a way to provide scientists with the option of describing what they are looking for in terms that are meaningful and natural to them, instead of in a syntax that is not. ...”