# Presentation: 785148

## MI3: Station Metadata at NCDC

- Jeff Arnfield
- NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center
- Asheville, NC

- Current situation, future direction

## MI3: NCDC’s Station History System

- Background and goals
- Overview
- Capabilities and features
- Contents
- Brief demo
- How does MI3 differ from SMS?
- Future / planned features
- Prior to NOAA-wide use

## MI3: Background and Goals

- Metadata Integration & Improvement Initiative
- Integrate, enhance & increase access
- Initial focus: manage NCDC’s station histories
- Accommodate broad variety of station details

- Identity
- Location
- Location Mapping
- Instrumentation

- Observing practices
- Data Programs & Products
- Management
- Photos & Document images

- Track information source & log changes
- Adapt to new observing systems, data programs and phenomena without recoding
- Hooks to incorporate data inventories

## Mi3 System Overview

- Normalized Oracle relational database
- More than 140 tables
- Accommodates new networks, programs and phenomena
- Easily accessible by other apps & systems
- Web-based delivery
- ColdFusion, Javascript and PL/SQL
- Geographically distributed access
- Minimizes administration and training
- Dedicated database and application servers
- Excellent performance, even with ad hoc queries
- Readily scaleable
- Layered security and access

## MI3:  Capabilities and Features

- Tabbed interface by subject area
- Overview grids showing all time periods
- Drill-down capability to an integrated form view for a single time period
- Further drilldown to individual “fact” level
- Date management functions enable flexible data viewing and reporting

## MI3:  Current Contents

- More than 32,000 stations, including:
- 25,870 Cooperative stations
- 882 ASOS
- 5,585 non-Coop surface stations (historical)
- 53 CRN stations
- 1 RADAR site

## MI3 : A Brief Demo

## MI3 Station Content Goals

- Operational networks

- US CRN
- ASOS
- AWOS
- RADAR

- Historical networks

- WMO MCDW
- Canadian AWOS
- AFCCC Master Station Catalog
- Upper Air

- Pre-1948 Coop
- Pre-1890 / Forts
- MCDW (prior data)

- Non-Coop Surface (1st, 2nd order)

## How does MI3 differ from SMS?

- MI3 was designed to accommodate new networks without recoding or DB changes (manual ingest)
- NOAA networks
- non-NOAA networks
- MI3 minimizes data redundancy
- No need to create a new record in all tables whenever a detail changes in any table
- MI3 permits direct correction of errors in a station’s historical record
- NCDC plans to incorporate historical stations and networks to support archive and access needs
- MI3 has hooks to add basic data inventory

## MI3: Planned Features

- Streamlined user interface
- Simpler routine maintenance and data entry
- Support for digital photos
- No ongoing source of photos when development began
- Link to imaged station history documents
- Linkages to inventories and data documentation
- Will permit MI3 to replace several legacy NCDC systems
- Additional output options
- Individual station reports
- Reports for groups of stations
- Flexible output formats, including delimited flat file, XML
- Queries and reports to identify data inconsistencies
- GIS interface

## Prior to NOAA-wide MI3 Use

- For all NOAA customers, internal and external
- Finish Section 508 compliance modifications
- Adequate support resources
- For advanced users: data ingest and maintenance
- Network-based security
- Now restricted by query only or full access, tab by tab
- Integrated maintenance screens
- Speed manual entry and update
- Minimize training and support
- Nice to have
- Additional output options
- Inclusion of additional station networks
- Separate query-only server
- Standard ingest format and procedures
- Facilitate ongoing bulk exchange of station information