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Increasing Discovery and Usability of Earth Science Satellite Data with My NASA Data

For 20 years, the My NASA Data project at NASA Langley Research Center has developed innovative approaches to increase the use of NASA’s satellite data by learners. My NASA Data offers a variety of authentic Earth Science datasets and a data visualization tool, eliminating the need for educators and/or learners to obtain specialized knowledge of GIS data formats and software to access and use authentic Earth Science data. While there is no shortage of available data, as federal government agencies such as NASA house petabytes of freely accessible Earth Science datasets, much of the data are only available for download and visualization in specialized formats and software, limiting their accessibility to educators and learners, especially those in primary and secondary school. Using the Google Earth Engine platform, the My NASA Data team has recently reinvented their data visualization tool, called the Earth System Data Explorer (ESDE). The ESDE gives users the capability to explore over 60 Earth Science satellite datasets in a multitude of formats such as maps, graphs, and data table Its new and improved user interface design was developed based on the preferences of educators, whom the My NASA Data project has over 20 years’ experience working with. Earth Science and GIS Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) structured the data in a professional and scientific manner. During Fiscal Year 2023, the My NASA Data website received over 1 million digital engagements, with over one-third being visitors to the data visualization tool. These metrics highlight the interest in a visualization tool that is simple and free to use with reliable and trusted datasets. The ESDE empowers users to readily relate and analyze NASA Earth Science data within their area of interest. The team used a user-centered design (UCD) framework to receive and incorporate feedback into the application’s design. Core requested features include the ability to create time series graphs, comparative analysis of maps, and download the data as CSV file. Responses indicate that advances in data visualization tools such as the ESDE make authentic Earth Science data more accessible. This presentation will cover how the My NASA Data project develops tools to enhance data discovery and accessibility, as well as how SME and user suggestions are incorporated.

Desiray Wilson↗

Exposing the Strategies that Can Reduce the Obstacles: Improving the Science User Experience

It is now well established that pursuing generic solutions to what seem are common problems in Earth science data access and use can often lead to disappointing results for both system developers and the intended users. This presentation focuses on real-world experience of managing a large and complex data system, NASAs Earth Science Data and Information Science System (EOSDIS), whose mission is to serve both broad user communities and those in smaller niche applications of Earth science data and services. In the talk, we focus on our experiences with known data user obstacles characterizing EOSDIS approaches, including various technological techniques, for engaging and bolstering, where possible, user experiences with EOSDIS. For improving how existing and prospective users discover and access NASA data from EOSDIS we introduce our cross-archive tool: Earthdata Search. This new search and order tool further empowers users to quickly access data sets using clever and intuitive features. The Worldview data visualization tool is also discussed highlighting how many users are now performing extensive data exploration without necessarily downloading data. Also, we explore our EOSDIS data discovery and access webinars, data recipes and short tutorials, targeted technical and data publications, user profiles and social media as additional tools and methods used for improving our outreach and communications to a diverse user community. These efforts have paid substantial dividends for our user communities by allowing us to target discipline specific community needs. The desired take-away from this presentation will be an improved understanding of how EOSDIS has approached, and in several instances achieved, removing or lowering the barriers to data access and use. As we look ahead to more complex Earth science missions, EOSDIS will continue to focus on our user communities, both broad and specialized, so that our overall data system can continue to serve the needs of science and applications users.

communications↗

TPSAS-NF1676L-32053-DND

The Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) offers Earth Science data sets created from satellite measurements, modeling, and field experiments enabling scientists, educators, and the public to study earth and its atmosphere. NASA ESDIS is working towards making Earth Science data and tools cloud-ready. In an effort to align itself with these efforts, the ASDC is transitioning its existing web based services, tools and applications to RESTful APIs, containerized as microservices to leverage scalability and efficiency of an on-premise cloud environment.

Makhan L Virdi↗

Building A Cloud Based Distributed Active Data Archive Center

NASA's Earth Science Data System (ESDS) Program facilitates the implementation of NASA's Earth Science strategic plan, which is committed to the full and open sharing of Earth science data obtained from NASA instruments to all users. The Earth Science Data information System (ESDIS) project manages the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). Data within EOSDIS are held at Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). One of the key responsibilities of the ESDS Program is to continuously evolve the entire data and information system to maximize returns on the collected NASA data.

Earth Science Informatics↗

Newly Released TRMM Version 7 Products, Other Precipitation Datasets and Data Services at NASA GES DISC

The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) is home of global precipitation product archives, in particular, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) products. TRMM is a joint U.S.-Japan satellite mission to monitor tropical and subtropical (40 S - 40 N) precipitation and to estimate its associated latent heating. The TRMM satellite provides the first detailed and comprehensive dataset on the four dimensional distribution of rainfall and latent heating over vastly undersampled tropical and subtropical oceans and continents. The TRMM satellite was launched on November 27, 1997. TRMM data products are archived at and distributed by GES DISC. The newly released TRMM Version 7 consists of several changes including new parameters, new products, meta data, data structures, etc. For example, hydrometeor profiles in 2A12 now have 28 layers (14 in V6). New parameters have been added to several popular Level-3 products, such as, 3B42, 3B43. Version 2.2 of the Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) dataset has been added to the TRMM Online Visualization and Analysis System (TOVAS; URL: http://disc2.nascom.nasa.gov/Giovanni/tovas/), allowing online analysis and visualization without downloading data and software. The GPCP dataset extends back to 1979. Version 3 of the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) monitoring product has been updated in TOVAS as well. The product provides global gauge-based monthly rainfall along with number of gauges per grid. The dataset begins in January 1986. To facilitate data and information access and support precipitation research and applications, we have developed a Precipitation Data and Information Services Center (PDISC; URL: http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/precipitation). In addition to TRMM, PDISC provides current and past observational precipitation data. Users can access precipitation data archives consisting of both remote sensing and in-situ observations. Users can use these data products to conduct a wide variety of activities, including case studies, model evaluation, uncertainty investigation, etc. To support Earth science applications, PDISC provides users near-real-time precipitation products over the Internet. At PDISC, users can access tools and software. Documentation, FAQ and assistance are also available. Other capabilities include: 1) Mirador (http://mirador.gsfc.nasa.gov/), a simplified interface for searching, browsing, and ordering Earth science data at NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). Mirador is designed to be fast and easy to learn; 2)TOVAS; 3) NetCDF data download for the GIS community; 4) Data via OPeNDAP (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/services/opendap/). The OPeNDAP provides remote access to individual variables within datasets in a form usable by many tools, such as IDV, McIDAS-V, Panoply, Ferret and GrADS; 5) The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Map Service (WMS) (http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/services/wxs_ogc.shtml). The WMS is an interface that allows the use of data and enables clients to build customized maps with data coming from a different network.

Liu, Zhong↗

Preserving NASA Historic and Current Mission Data and Adding Value to These for Future Researchers

The NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) has been actively involved in many aspects of ensuring the long-term preservation of NASA earth science data and knowledge. This involves both the recovery and preservation of early NASA meteorological and other earth observation data, as well as preserving the more recent Earth Observation System (EOS) mission data sets which continue or have reached their end of lifetime. The GES DISC adds value to these preserved data by adding metadata and making the data available online to future researchers. The early NASA meteorological and earth observation data sets from the 1960s and 70s were originally archived on magnetic tapes, and visualizations of these data were preserved on 70-mm film. As these media have aged, their contents have been at risk of permanent loss. NASA has given the task of preserving these early data sets to the GES DISC and making these data sets easily available to the public. The data from these early missions are potentially useful to climate researchers as these are some of the only global measurements made at their time. These old data on magnetic tapes and film strips do not contain easily readable metadata, and so to add value the GES DISC has added digital metadata to them so that the data are searchable and findable. The GES DISC is also involved in preserving the data and knowledge from the EOS era missions. The GES DISC follows the guidelines developed for the preservation of data as specified in the NASA EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Earth Science Data Preservation Content Specification (423-SPEC-001) document. To date, the GES DISC has consulted with the data science teams from the following missions: UARS, Earth Probe TOMS, Aura HIRDLS, and SORCE, in order to properly preserve their data and accompanying documentation. The GES DISC is also currently working with the EOS science teams from TRMM, AIRS, MLS, OMI and additional missions to ensure that the relevant documents and data sets are properly archived for future researchers. A standardized procedure for mission data preservation following 423-SPEC-001 makes preservation among the many NASA EOSDIS data centers uniform, so that these could be transitioned easily to a common EOSDIS preservation repository. This presentation will give an overview of the preservation and recovery of the old NASA historical data sets archived at the GES DISC, as well as the data and documentation preservation efforts of the EOS era missions.

James Johnson↗

The Lifecycle of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise Data Resources

A major endeavor of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) is to acquire, process, archive and distribute data from Earth observing satellites in support of a broad set of science research and applications in the U. S. and abroad. NASA policy directives specifically call for the agency to collect, announce, disseminate and archive all scientific and technical data resulting from NASA and NASA-funded research. During the active life of the satellite missions, while the data products are being created, validated and refined, a number of NASA organizations have the responsibility for data and information system functions. Following the completion of the missions, the responsibility for the long-term stewardship of the ocean and atmospheric, and land process data products transitions to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), respectively. Ensuring that long-term satellite data be preserved to support global climate change studies and other research topics and applications presents some major challenges to NASA and its partners. Over the last several years, with the launch and operation of the EOS satellites and the acquisition and production of an unprecedented volume of Earth science data, the importance of addressing these challenges has been elevated. The lifecycle of NASA's Earth science data has been the subject of several agency and interagency studies and reports and has implications and effects on agency charters, policies and budgets and on their data system's requirements, implementation plans and schedules. While much remains to be done, considerable progress has been made in understanding and addressing the data lifecycle issues.

McDonald, Kenneth R.↗

NASA Environmental Justice Data Search Interface Overview

NASA’s Earth Science Division (ESD) is committed to empower Environmental Justice (EJ) communities by expanding awareness, accessibility, and use of Earth science data to enable contributions to Earth science research and applications. To that end, the NASA Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program developed an EJ Data Catalog, a simple guide to NASA datasets and socioeconomic datasets that may be useful in EJ research. The EJ Data Catalog is divided by topics—such as disasters, urban flooding, extreme heat, food availability, water availability, climate, and health and air quality—and possible use cases for each dataset. The new version of the EJ Data Catalog is now integrated into NASA’s Science Discovery Engine (SDE), an open-source science infrastructure to enable collaborative and interdisciplinary science. In this workshop you will learn about NASA’s Equity and Environmental Justice (EEJ) activities and opportunities as well as participate on an interactive live demo of the new Science Discovery Engine for Environmental Justice.

environmental justice↗

Bridging the Gap between Earth Science and Students: An Integrated Approach using NASA Earth Science Climate Data

Under the auspices of the Department of Education's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, beginning in 2007 students will be tested in the science area. There are many techniques that educators can employ to teach students science. The use of authentic materials or in this case authentic data can be an engaging alternative to more traditional methods. An Earth science classroom is a great place for the integration of authentic data and science concepts. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a wealth of high quality Earth science data available to the general public. For instance, the Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) at NASA s Langley Research Center houses over 800 Earth science data sets related to Earth's radiation budget, clouds, aerosols and tropospheric chemistry. These data sets were produced to increase academic understanding of the natural and anthropogenic factors that influence global climate; however, a major hurdle in using authentic data is the size of the data and data documentation. To facilitate the use of these data sets for educational purposes, the Mentoring and inquirY using NASA Data on Atmospheric and Earth science for Teachers and Amateurs (MY NASA DATA) project has been established to systematically support educational activities at all levels of formal and informal education. The MY NASA DATA project accomplishes this by reducing these large data holdings to microsets that are easily accessible and explored by K-12 educators and students though the project's Web page. MY NASA DATA seeks to ease the difficulty in understanding the jargon-heavy language of Earth science. This manuscript will show how MY NASA DATA provides resources for NCLB implementation in the science area through an overview of the Web site, the different microsets available, the lesson plans and computer tools, and an overview of educational support mechanisms.

Alston, Erica J.↗

NASA EOSDIS 20 Years of Data Usage and User Assessment in Support of Open Science Initiative

NASA EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS) has been distributing data to world-wide users free with open access. Since the launch of NASA’s Terra satellite in 1999, more than 10,000 distinct EOS data products have been archived and distributed by NASA-funded Earth Science data centers encompassed by the EOSDIS. As of September 30, 2022, more than 90 PB of data archived by EOSDIS have been made available to public users and during FY 2023 over 60 PB have been distributed to public users worldwide. Over these twenty and more years, it has shown significant increase in the distribution of various data products. This has been possible due to free and open access of the data thereby a step towards open science initiative. The purposes of this study are 1) to perform a comprehensive investigation of the archive and distribution patterns of EOSDIS data products for last 20 years, 2) to identify and characterize the global user community for those data, 3) analyze the increased demand for data products, 4) evaluate distribution of higher level products because those are the ones most frequently used in the studies of natural disasters by public users (those data requestors not involved directly in the production or validation of the data products.) and contribute globally to the advance scientific understanding of the Earth-Atmosphere Systems. Funded by the Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project, the ESDIS Metrics System (EMS) collects archive, distribution, and user information from EOSDIS data centers. The information (comprising all data products including heritage datasets going back to the 1990s) is stored in a relational database from which it can be analyzed in many ways. We present several metrics analyses that include data distribution patterns for all, as well as the most frequently requested data products; and user characterizations by country, domain, and Earth Science discipline (e.g., Land, Ocean, Cryosphere) of the requested products. Due to the enormous quantity of data handled by EOSDIS data centers and requirements of future data systems to archive increasing amounts of Earth Science data from future and current Earth Science missions effectively, the results of this study can provide insight on how the user communities have accessed the data and provide guidance for open science initiative.

Lalit Wanchoo↗

Quantitative Metrics from 20 Years of Terra Data Usage

NASA's Terra flagship satellite carries five Earth-observing instruments that have collected data for almost 20 years. NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project makes these data, along with derived products, available to worldwide data users. Since the launch of Terra on December 18, 1999, more than 10,000 data products have been archived and distributed by NASA-funded Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) that are part of NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). At the end of the 2018 Fiscal Year, about 1,000 Terra data products constituted almost 22% of the entire EOSDIS data archive volume (6 PB out of approximately 27.5 PB), and 6 PB of Terra data were distributed to over half-a-million public users worldwide.By categorizing the Terra data products and their distribution, we can get a quantitative assessment of Terra data usage. NASA's ESDIS Project has collected archive, distribution, and user information from EOSDIS data users since February 2000. These metrics are available through the ESDIS Metrics System (EMS). EMS information is stored in a relational database from which quantitative metrics of Terra data use can be retrieved and analyzed.The purposes of this study are to: 1) perform a comprehensive investigation of the 20-year trend in the archive and distribution of Terra data products; 2) identify and characterize data product usage over the last 20 years; and 3) identify and characterize the global user community for these data. In addition to revealing how Terra data use has evolved over time, the results of this study provide insights on identifying the various user communities for different kinds of Earth science data products. Also, because of the enormous quantity of data handled by EOSDIS DAACs, the study provides guidance of the requirements for future data systems that will be needed to effectively and efficiently handle the ever-increasing amounts of Earth science data produced by future (and ongoing) Earth science missions.

Wanchoo, Lalit↗

GES DISC Data Recipes in Jupyter Notebooks

The Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project manages twelve Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) which are geographically dispersed across the United States. The DAACs are responsible for ingesting, processing, archiving, and distributing Earth science data produced from various sources (satellites, aircraft, field measurements, etc.). In response to projections of an exponential increase in data production, there has been a recent effort to prototype various DAAC activities in the cloud computing environment. This, in turn, led to the creation of an initiative, called the Cloud Analysis Toolkit to Enable Earth Science (CATEES), to develop a Python software package in order to transition Earth science data processing to the cloud. This project, in particular, supports CATEES and has two primary goals. One, to transition data recipes created by the Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Service Center (GES DISC) into an interactive and educational environment using JupyterNotebooks. Two, to acclimate Earth scientists to cloud computing. To accomplish these goals, we create JupyterNotebooks to compartmentalize the different steps of data analysis and help users obtain and parse data from the command line. We also develop a Docker container, comprised of Jupyter Notebooks, Python dependencies, and command line tools, and configure it into an easy-to-deploy package. The end result is an end-to-end product that simulates the use case of end users working in the cloud computing environment.

discoverability↗

Leverage Your Science Data Return by Flying with the International Earth Science Constellation (ESC)

Constellations have proven to be an effective and efficient way to acquire earth science data. By flying together, sensors on all satellites in a constellation take measurements of the same air, water, or land mass at essentially the same time. The sensors form a single "virtual satellite". The key to making a constellation effective and efficient is keeping the operations as independent as possible in order to minimize the operational burden and costs. The Earth Science Constellation (ESC) has been successful on all counts and continues to welcome new missions to continue its 18+ year record of coincidental earth science observations. The ESC also serves as a model for future constellation designs. This paper describes the ESC and its evolution from its initial launches in 1999 through the present and how new missions might benefit from joining the ESC.

leverage data↗

Leverage Your Science Data Return by Flying with the International Earth Science Constellation (ESC)

Constellations have proven to be an effective and efficient way to acquire earth science data. By flying together, sensors on all satellites in a constellation take measurements of the same air, water, or land mass at essentially the same time. The sensors form a single "virtual satellite". The key to making a constellation effective and efficient is keeping the operations as independent as possible in order to minimize the operational burden and costs. The Earth Science Constellation (ESC) has been successful on all counts and continues to welcome new missions to continue its 18+ year record of coincidental earth science observations. The ESC also serves as a model for future constellation designs. This paper describes the ESC and its evolution from its initial launches in 1999 through the present and how new missions might benefit from joining the ESC.

Morning Constellation; Afternoon Constellation; Ea↗

Tools and Data Services from the GSFC Earth Sciences DAAC for Aura Science Data Users

In these times of rapidly increasing amounts of archived data, tools and data services that manipulate data and uncover nuggets of information that potentially lead to scientific discovery are becoming more and more essential. The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Earth Sciences (GES) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) has made great strides in facilitating science and applications research by, in consultation with its users, developing innovative tools and data services. That is, as data users become more sophisticated in their research and more savvy with information extraction methodologies, the GES DAAC has been responsive to this evolution. This presentation addresses the tools and data services available and under study at the GES DAAC, applied to the Earth sciences atmospheric data. Now, with the data from NASA's latest Atmospheric Chemistry mission, Aura, being readied for public release, GES DAAC tools, proven successful for past atmospheric science missions such as MODIS, AIRS, TRMM, TOMS, and UARS, provide an excellent basis for similar tools updated for the data from the Aura instruments. GES DAAC resident Aura data sets are from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), and High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS). Data obtained by these instruments afford researchers the opportunity to acquire accurate and continuous visualization and analysis, customized for Aura data, will facilitate the use and increase the usefulness of the new data. The Aura data, together with other heritage data at the GES DAAC, can potentially provide a long time series of data. GES DAAC tools will be discussed, as well as the GES DAAC Near Archive Data Mining (NADM) environment, the GIOVANNI on-line analysis tool, and rich data search and order services. Information can be found at: http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/upperatm/aura/. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Kempler, S.↗

Framework for Processing Citizens Science Data for Applications to NASA Earth Science Missions

Citizen science (or crowdsourcing) has drawn much high-level recent and ongoing interest and support. It is poised to be applied, beyond the by-now fairly familiar use of, e.g., Twitter for natural hazards monitoring, to science research, such as augmenting the validation of NASA earth science mission data. This interest and support is seen in the 2014 National Plan for Civil Earth Observations, the 2015 White House forum on citizen science and crowdsourcing, the ongoing Senate Bill 2013 (Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2015), the recent (August 2016) Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) call for public participation in its newly-established Citizen Science Domain Working Group, and NASA's initiation of a new Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program (along with its first citizen science-focused solicitation for proposals). Over the past several years, we have been exploring the feasibility of extracting from the Twitter data stream useful information for application to NASA precipitation research, with both "passive" and "active" participation by the twitterers. The Twitter database, which recently passed its tenth anniversary, is potentially a rich source of real-time and historical global information for science applications. The time-varying set of "precipitation" tweets can be thought of as an organic network of rain gauges, potentially providing a widespread view of precipitation occurrence. The validation of satellite precipitation estimates is challenging, because many regions lack data or access to data, especially outside of the U.S. and in remote and developing areas. Mining the Twitter stream could augment these validation programs and, potentially, help tune existing algorithms. Our ongoing work, though exploratory, has resulted in key components for processing and managing tweets, including the capabilities to filter the Twitter stream in real time, to extract location information, to filter for exact phrases, and to plot tweet distributions. The key step is to process the "precipitation" tweets to be compatible with satellite-retrieved precipitation data. These key components for processing and managing "precipitation" tweets (and additional ones to be developed) are not limited to precipitation, nor are they limited to the Twitter social medium. Indeed, to maximize the value of our work for NASA earth science programs, these components should be generalized and be part of an overall framework for processing citizen science data for science research. In this paper, we outline such a framework.

earth science satellite data↗

Hurricane Data Analysis Tool

In order to facilitate Earth science data access, the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data Information Services Center (GES DISC) has developed a web prototype, the Hurricane Data Analysis Tool (HDAT; URL: http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/HDAT), to allow users to conduct online visualization and analysis of several remote sensing and model datasets for educational activities and studies of tropical cyclones and other weather phenomena. With a web browser and few mouse clicks, users can have a full access to terabytes of data and generate 2-D or time-series plots and animation without downloading any software and data. HDAT includes data from the NASA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), the NASA Quick Scatterometer(QuikSCAT) and NECP Reanalysis, and the NCEP/CPC half-hourly, 4-km Global (60 N - 60 S) IR Dataset. The GES DISC archives TRMM data. The daily global rainfall product derived from the 3-hourly multi-satellite precipitation product (3B42 V6) is available in HDAT. The TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) sea surface temperature from the Remote Sensing Systems is in HDAT as well. The NASA QuikSCAT ocean surface wind and the NCEP Reanalysis provide ocean surface and atmospheric conditions, respectively. The global merged IR product, also known as, the NCEP/CPC half-hourly, 4-km Global (60 N -60 S) IR Dataset, is one of TRMM ancillary datasets. They are globally-merged pixel-resolution IR brightness temperature data (equivalent blackbody temperatures), merged from all available geostationary satellites (GOES-8/10, METEOSAT-7/5 & GMS). The GES DISC has collected over 10 years of the data beginning from February of 2000. This high temporal resolution (every 30 minutes) dataset not only provides additional background information to TRMM and other satellite missions, but also allows observing a wide range of meteorological phenomena from space, such as, hurricanes, typhoons, tropical cyclones, mesoscale convection system, etc. Basic functions include selection of area of interest and time, single imagery, overlay of two different products, animation,a time skip capability and different image size outputs. Users can save an animation as a file (animated gif) and import it in other presentation software, such as, Microsoft PowerPoint. Since the tool can directly access the real data, more features and functionality can be added in the future.

Liu, Zhong↗

Evolution of Information Management at the GSFC Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC): 2006-2007

Increasingly sophisticated National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth science missions have driven their associated data and data management systems from providing simple point-to-point archiving and retrieval to performing user-responsive distributed multisensor information extraction. To fully maximize the use of remote-sensor-generated Earth science data, NASA recognized the need for data systems that provide data access and manipulation capabilities responsive to research brought forth by advancing scientific analysis and the need to maximize the use and usability of the data. The decision by NASA to purposely evolve the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC) and other information management facilities was timely and appropriate. The GES DISC evolution was focused on replacing the EOSDIS Core System (ECS) by reusing the In-house developed disk-based Simple, Scalable, Script-based Science Product Archive (S4PA) data management system and migrating data to the disk archives. Transition was completed in December 2007

Kempler, Steven↗