Collaborative Research, IPY: A Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service

This project will develop a Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service (CADIS) that will support the Arctic Observing Network (AON) and Study of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) programs. CADIS will provide the discovery, access, and use of scientific data by providing near-real-time data delivery, a repository for data storage, a portal for the discovery, and tools to manipulate data. This system and data service will be built in a stepwise coherent manner and result in comprehensive long-term management for Arctic scientific data. CADIS will be a joint effort of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The project team will develop a new body of cyberinfrastructure by leveraging, integrating, and extending UCAR's Community Data Portal (CDP) framework and Unidata's THREDDS environment to form the CADIS system and portal. The CADIS portal will make it easier for scientists to locate, display, subset, publish, and analyze related data sets provided by a network of data providers. In the first year, a metadata plan will be completed; it will include AON projects and Long Term Observatory (LTO) projects. In the second year, the CADIS portal will be populated with metadata from the AON and LTO projects. In the third year, real-time delivery through CADIS of selected AON and IASOA (International Arctic System for Observing the Atmosphere) data will be accomplished, and tools for searching via a map interface, and a map server showing the location of selected AON or SEARCH components (where metadata are available) will be added. Also in the third year, system performance will be evaluated and documented, and a future direction charted. Guidance from the scientific and lay user communities will be key to implementing the CADIS facility. Information will be received via questionnaires, meetings, standing committees and individual queries to assess CADIS effectiveness and recommend improvements. This project is highly relevant to International Polar Year goals for developing comprehensive data management plans and creating legacy data sets. The intellectual merit lies in the stepwise development of a new cyberinfrastructure for management of Arctic scientific data. The broader impact of CADIS is that it creates a foundation for long-term access to data archives, discovery, delivery and analysis by the Arctic science community and other users.