Review of NASA's Distributed Active Archive Centers (1999) / Chapter Skim
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9 Oak Ridge National Laboratory DAAC
9 Oak Ridge National Laboratory DAAC
Pages 165-182
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From page 165... ...
DAAC manages data needed to study biogeochemical fluxes and processes. In contrast to other DAACs, the ORNL DAAC deals with data derived mainly from intensive field campaigns and process studies, rather than from satellites.
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From page 166... ...
It will also have to have a vision of what it intends to accomplish in the EOS Land Validation Program and other data activities, and the panel's main recommendation is that the DAAC develop a vision and implementation strategy for fulfilling its special mission within the DAAC system. A plan for participating in the EOS flight missions is a key part of the implementation strategy, and given the imminence of launch date, the DAAC needs to develop this plan immediately.
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From page 167... ...
HOLDINGS The ORNL DAAC archives and distributes biogeochemistry data sets associated with intensive field campaigns and global terrestrial ecosystems process studies (Box 9.2~. The intensive field campaigns, such as the First International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project Field Experiment (FIFE)
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From page 168... ...
. Data on biomass response to climate variation are important for understanding the global carbon cycle and how net primary productivity on a grassland may vary in response to global change.
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From page 169... ...
, such as Net Primary Production (NPP) , are primarily used to develop and test global ecosystem models.
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From page 170... ...
Rendering such descriptions useful to other scientists requires devoting time and attention to compiling, organizing, and presenting information about how the data were collected, and storing the data so that they can be readily used in conjunction with other data from the DAAC work that the academic and research communities do not generally reward. Integration of Ground-Based and Remotely Sensed Data The ORNL DAAC's role in the EOS Land Validation Program will be (1)
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From page 171... ...
Given the importance of validating the EOS remote sensing measurements, ESDIS should ensure that the ECS metadata model accommodates data derived from ground- and aircraft-based studies. Formats Although the standard format for EOS data is HDF-EOS, all of the ORNL DAAC's holdings are kept as ASCII files.
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From page 172... ...
NASA and DOE should consider establishing a Memorandum of Understanding for the long-term archive of biogeochemical data from the ORNL DAAC. USERS Characterization of the User Community The ORNL DAAC primarily serves the global change research community, which includes scientists who use terrestrial ecology and biogeochemical dynamics data from process studies, field experiments, and remote sensing.
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From page 173... ...
For example, the current allocation of work between field campaigns, validation of remote sensing products, and ecosystem modeling (see "Data Priorities," below) was recommended by the UWG.
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From page 174... ...
Indeed, the DAAC prides itself on its ability to satisfy users requests. If the DAAC is to meet the challenge of the EOS Land Validation Program, however, the user services group will have to place increased emphasis on providing standardized data sets for the development and intercomparison of biogeochemical models, and on providing data from a variety of platforms (chambers, buoys, towers, shops, aircraft, balloons, satellites)
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From page 175... ...
In general, the basic data center functions of acquisition, quality control, archiving, and providing access to data appear to be well understood by the DAAC and carried out successfully. Several CD-ROMs based on current data holdings have been produced, and they demonstrate the DAAC's understanding of the value of and requirements for its data holdings by the research community.
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From page 176... ...
In fact, the DAAC's experience with early involvement in upcoming field campaigns such as LEA will help it form similar relationships with the instrument teams. By thinking strategically, the DAAC will also be able to further improve the effectiveness of its data center operations.
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From page 177... ...
on the global NPP data sets shows the advantage of having scientists familiar with the NPP data work with data management personnel. In general, however, scientists in the Environmental Science Division do not appear to be actively working with DAAC personnel on most of the biogeochemistry data stored by the DAAC, and the DAAC should aggressively pursue opportunities for collaboration (see "Relationship with Scientific Community"~.
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From page 178... ...
Currently 40% of the DAAC's effort is associated with archiving and distributing the small, diverse data sets from the intensive field campaigns; and another 40% of the DAAC's effort goes toward the EOS Land Validation Program. The remaining 20% of the DAAC effort is concerned with global terrestrial ecosystem data sets.
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From page 179... ...
ESDIS should devote greater attention to the importance of the ORNL DAAC to the success of the EOS program, support its activities as a full player in EOSDIS, and thereby help it become better integrated within the DAAC system. Relation to Other DAACs Although the ORNL DAAC works with the EROS DAAC on the EOS Land Validation Program, it apparently has little other interaction with the EOSDIS system.
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From page 180... ...
Relation to Instrument Teams Until now, the "instrument teams" for the ORNL DAAC were the principal investigators of the NASA intensive field campaigns and process studies. The DAAC has generally had a good relationship with these data providers and has positioned itself to become more involved in the planning of future studies, such as LEA and Fluxnet.
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From page 181... ...
Unless in situ data from the ORNL DAAC are integrated successfully with the satellite data, the interpretation of satellite observations cannot be validated. Yet, plans for resolving the geolocation problem inherent in integrating these disparate data types have not been developed or even conceived, and the ECS metadata model does not accommodate key words needed to search and retrieve land- and aircraft-based data.
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