The Unpredictable Certainty White Papers (1997) / Chapter Skim
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The National Information Infrastructure and the Earth Sciences: Possibilities and Challenges
The National Information Infrastructure and the Earth Sciences: Possibilities and Challenges
Pages 1-9
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In this paper ~ discuss the various technical challenges in the use of information networks for the Earth sciences. However, the technical issues, though important, are not the essential point.
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When SST values produced by the satellites were higher Than a fixed amount above the long-term average SST for a region, the computer processing system would ignore them and would use He long-term average value ins (i.e., the processing system assumed that the satellite measurements were In errors. As there was no human intervention in this automated system, He SST fields continued to show "normal" SST values In the eastern tropical Pacific In 1982.
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Such expeditions require the work of many scientists. The study of problems such as the imp acts of climate change on ocean productivity require an understanding of the physical dynamics of both the atmosphere and ocean, besides knowledge of ocean biology.
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, the effective bandwidth has dropped dramatically. As the science community becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of the network user community, network providers focus less on meeting scientific needs and more on meeting commercial needs.
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For the centralized archive, each individual user realizes great personal benefit by establishing a private library while the cost is spread evenly over all of He users. It is therefore in the interest of the Individual user to maximize individual benefit at the cost of He common facility.
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Thus programming talent that was originally hired to engage in scientific analysis is spending a larger fraction of its time engaged in nonscientific activities. Although developments in the commercial field are simplifying these and associated tasks, they do cost money.
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The Network and Science There is no doubt Hat networks simplify many tasks for Earn science. However, there are many obvious problems, such as He separation of information from its underlying context, the difficulty in locating information of interest, and He lack of responsibility for the quality and value of a particular data set.
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In contrast, television emphasizes imagery, narrative, presentation, and quick response. The question is, Where do computer networks sit with regard to print versus television?
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But as scientists, we must be aware of the fundamental changes that networks bring to the scientific process. If our students rely only on networks to locate data as opposed to making real-worId observations, if they cannot use a library to search for historical information, if they are not accountable for information that appears on the network, if they cannot form reasoned, logical arguments, then we have done them a great disservice.
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