Review of NASA's Distributed Active Archive Centers (1999) / Chapter Skim
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7 Physical Oceanography DAAC
7 Physical Oceanography DAAC
Pages 131-146
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From page 131... ...
. It manages data from a wide variety of ocean experiments and missions, including several done in collaboration with other countries, and it primarily serves the physical oceanography community.
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From page 132... ...
These collective data activities formed the NASA Ocean Data System, which became the basis for the Physical Oceanography DAAC. The DAAC has existed since 1991 and is responsible for processing, archiving, and disseminating all of NASA's data related to physical oceanography (Box 7.1~.
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From page 133... ...
Finally, the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) Pathfinder information enables components of the fluxes between the ocean and atmosphere to be calculated, and the sea surface temperature information is important to a wide variety of ocean and climate studies.
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From page 134... ...
Documentation and Metadata Examination of the PO.DAAC's Web site indicates that on-line data sets are well documented. The DAAC archives ancillary data along with the data sets, and provides read software and detailed data set guides and user manuals for each data set.
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From page 135... ...
Data Restrictions The PO.DAAC holds European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS) data, whose use is restricted to "approved" NASA scientists under the terms of the MOU between NASA and the European Space Agency.
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From page 136... ...
Data products produced by the DAAC, such as the TOPEX/ Poseidon Merged Geophysical Data Record, are not produced using instrument team PGEs. Rather, the DAAC develops the software and algorithms in-house, often with the oversight of members of the science team.
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From page 137... ...
Particularly impressive to the panel was the high level of interaction between the DAAC and the physical oceanography group at JPL, with which it is collocated. The DAAC scientist, Victor Zlotnicki, is a respected oceanographer, and this helps foster community trust in the DAAC.
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From page 138... ...
TECHNOLOGY Hardware Availability The DAAC's system is currently based on a combination of SGI and Sun processors. The tape library is a 4-TB Metrum RSS-48 unit employing VHS tape technology.
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From page 139... ...
, the DAAC makes extensive use of HDF for storing data products (see Table 1.1 for a description of processing levels)
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From page 140... ...
In addition, it is working with Goddard Space Flight Center to ensure that its external networks have sufficient capacity to support the flow of data from the downlink at the Wallops Flight Facility to the QuickS CAT Ground System. Additional bandwidth will be needed in the future to support the SeaWinds and AMSR missions, and the DAAC has already requested a network review to ensure that it has the needed capabilities before launch.
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From page 141... ...
The DAAC finds it difficult to retain staff or fill vacancies, in part because salaries offered to engineers and computer scientists by JPL are not competitive with salaries for similar positions in the greater Los Angeles area. In addition, ESDIS recently cut the DAAC budget and the DAAC chose to absorb the cut by leaving vacant positions unfilled.
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From page 142... ...
The latter makes it difficult for the DAAC to make plans and to obtain accurate application program interfaces (APIs)
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From page 143... ...
The earlier departure of Dixon Butler, former operations director of the Data and Information Systems Division of Mission to Planet Earth, who displayed strong leadership and a vision for EOSDIS, was also a cause of concern to the DAAC.
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From page 144... ...
The panel, on the other hand, notes that communication and interoperability with other DAACs are necessary for helping users locate and combine disparate data sets, thereby fostering multidisciplinary research. This is a major objective of EOSDIS.
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From page 145... ...
Some of these researchers will seek to combine disparate data sets from a variety of sources, including the PO.DAAC. Indeed, facilitating the creation of such multidisciplinary data sets is a primary goal of EOSDIS and was a reason for creating the DAACs and the ECS (see Chapter 1~.
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