Use of www to achieve environmental data Benjamin Pfeil Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research / University of Bergen

Ways how to get data...

...but also

Often data shows a snapshot of the environment at that time/space Sampling can be very expensive (average of over NOK for one data set for bio-, geoscience - including costs for expeditions, laboratories, etc) Therefore is data very valueable for future scientific work and has to be archived and made available

Why do we need data? Verification of research results Comparison of results Indication of trends Model input Remote sensing Etc.

Some facts about data in the scientific community Scientific instruments and computer simulations create large amount of data Due to new measurement (and better precision) are the data volumes doubling each year Scientific data has to be archived according to ”Good scientific practise in research and scholarship” (European Science Foundation 2000)

? Global increase in publications in empirical sciences

36. Data are produced at all stages in experimental research and in scholarship. Data sets are an important resource, which enable later verification of scientific interpretations and conclusions. They may also be the starting point for further studies. It is vital, therefore, that all primary and secondary data are stored in a secure and accessible form. Good scientific practice in research and scholarship European Science Foundation (ESF), Institutions may pay particular attention to documenting and archiving original research and scholarship data. Several codes of good practice recommend a minimum period of 10 years, longer in the case of especially significant or sensitive data. National or regional discipline-based archives should be considered where there are practical or other problems in storing data at the institution where the research was conducted. Data accumulation, handling, and storage

4. Scientific advances rely on full and open access to data. Both science and the public are well served by a system of scholarly research and communication with minimal constraints on the availability of data for further analysis. The tradition of full and open access to data has led to breakthroughs in scientific understanding, as well as to later economic and public policy benefits. The idea that an individual or organization can control access to or claim ownership of the facts of nature is foreign to science. Principles for dissemination of scientific data (International Council for Science/CODATA) 5. The interests of database owners must be balanced with society’s need for open exchange of ideas. Given the substantial investment in data collection and its importance to society, it is equally important that data are used to the maximum extent possible. Data that were collected for a variety of purposes may be useful to science. Legal foundations and societal attitudes should foster a balance between individual rights to data and the public good of shared data.

International Council for Science (ICSU) Founded in 1931 to promote international scientific activity in the different branches of science and its application for the benefit of humanity One of the oldest non-governmental organizations More than 135 nations adhere to it ISCU established the World Data Center system in the 1950s Source:

World Data Center system Mission Statement of the World Data Center System Data constitute the raw material of scientific understanding. The World Data Center system works to guarantee access to solar, geophysical and related environmental data. It serves the whole scientific community by assembling, scrutinizing, organizing and disseminating data and information

Network of ICSU WDCs Nuclear Radiation Tokyo, Japan WDC Co-ordination Offices Washington DC, USA Beijing, China Meteorology Asheville NC, USA Beijing, China Obninsk, Russia Oceaography Obninsk, Russia Silver Spring MD, USA Tianjin, China Paleoclimatology Boulder CO, USA Marine Geology and Geophysics Boulder CO, USA Moscow, Russia Remotely Sensed Land Data Sioux Falls SD, USA Renewable Resources and Environment Beijing, China Recent Crustal Movements Ondrejov, Czech Republic Airglow Mitaka,Japan Astronomy Beijing, China Atmospheric Trace Gases Oak Ridge TN, USA Aurora Tokyo, Japan Cosmic Rays Toyokawa, Japan Geology Beijing, China Human Interactions in the Environment Palisades NY, USA Ionosphere Tokyo, Japan Earth Tides Brussels, Belgium Geomagnetism Copenhagen, Denmark Edinburgh, UK Kyoto, Japan Colaba, India Glaciology Boulder CO, USA Cambridge, UK Lanzhou, China Marine Environmental Sciences Bremen, Germany Rotation of the Earth Obninsk, Russia Washington DC, USA Satellite Information Greenbelt MD, USA Rockets and Satellites Obninsk, Russia Seismology Denver CO, USA Beijing, China Solar Radio Emission Nagano, Japan Space Science Beijing, China Space Science Satellites Kanagawa, Japan Solar Activity Meudon, France Soils Wageningen, The Netherlands Sunspot Index Brussels, Belgium Solar Terrestrial Physics Boulder CO, USA Didcot Oxon, UK Moscow, Russia Haymarket, Australia Solid Earth Geophysics Beijing, China Boulder CO, USA Moscow, Russia

Where and how do you get data? Ok, now you have been (hopefully) listening for some time, but how can you have access to environmental data? You have minutes in order to find environmental data using the internet Good luck

What are scientific data and how can they be structured?

Age model [kyr] What are data ? : Age, error [kyr] : Sed rate [cm/kyrs] : : : Age, dated [kyr] Depth [m] : : Dated material G. inflata G. bulloides : N. pachyderma sin. : :::::::::: DataSet title: VogelsangE et al 2001/Age control of sediment core V23-81 Reference: Broecker, WS et al (1988): Preliminary estimates for the radiocarbon age of deepwater … Bond, GC et al (1993): Correlations between climate records …, Nature, 365: Sarnthein, M; Winn, K; Jung, S J A; Duplessy, J C; Labeyrie, L D … (1994): Changes in east… Project: Glacial Atlantic Mapping and Prediction (GLAMAP2000) Event: V23-81 * LATITUDE: * LONGITUDE: * ELEVATION: * DATETIME: 18 Oct :00:00 * GEAR: Piston corer, unspec. * CAMPAIGN: V23 Parameter: Age, dated - Age, dated [kyr] * … METHOD: AMS 14C dating. Broecker et al … Dated material - Age, dated material * PI: Sarnthein Sed rate - Sedimentation rate [cm/kyrs] * PI: Sarnthein * METHOD: calculated PI: Sarnthein, Michael, Source: PANGAEA - DataSet ID: Data details:

Metadata – describing your data Principal investigator(s) (PI), Project(s) who what where when how Data types, Parameter [unit] Methods Spatial coverage -> geographical positions Temporal coverage -> Title, Identifier (DOI) Reference(s) Quantities Sampling event, Campaign, Location

Ratio Ordinal Nominal Level of scale Interval e.g. Kelvin scale { ; -3.2; 760; 0 } e.g. Fahrenheit scale Semiquantitative, rank-ordered, intervals may not be equal e.g. { male; female } { red; green; blue } Quantitative, zero included Quantitative, no zero, equal intervals (addition, subtraction), but no proportions e.g. { first; second; third } { rare; frequent; abundant } Qualitative, no ordering implied

numerical data text data pictures tertiary data secondary data primary data interpretations, aggregated data (e.g. timeslices) raw data (e.g. counts, d18O) calculated from raw data (e.g. paleotemperatures) Technical Processing level Classification schemes SST MG/CA SST formam SST alkenone

What are geocodes? LATITUDE (decimal degrees) LONGITUDE (or degree, minute, second) UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) DEPTH, sediment [m] DEPTH, ice/snow [m] DEPTH, water [m b.s.l.] ALTITUDE [m a.s.l.] ELEVATION [m a.s.l.] ORDINAL NUMBER eg. Tree ring DISTANCE [cm] DATE/TIME AGE [kyr BP] Spatial Temporal

Ocean Shelf Land Lake Ice Depth in sediment Corals (distance) Altitude / Elevation Depth in water Outcrops (depth, distance, ordinal number) Depth in sediment Depth in ice Depth in water Depth in ice Geocodes – the third dimension Trees (ordinal number) Warves (ordinal number)

Geocodes – temporal GEOLOGIC AGE Trees Warves DATE/TIMECalendars & timezones chronography Corals relative age dating bio- / lithostratigraphy Absolute age dating radiometric time scale nominal ages absolute ages

Ways to archive data

File systems Relational databases (RDBs) Technical data organisation advantage: fast & cheap archiving procedure (on a short run) disadvantage: low consistency of data disadvantage: work intensive archiving procedure, needs high degree of data organization usage for mass data is limited advantage: high consistency of data, low costs for data curation, good retrieval qualities Mixed Relational database -> geocoded data & metadata File system -> mass data (geophysical data, pictures, films)

How to make data available to science?

Possible problems in retrieving data from the net Version conflicts (data is archived in many data centres – in different stages e.g. raw data, quality controlled, etc.) Bad documented metadata and data (methods, units, unclear parameter definitions, etc) Just metadata is available online – data has to be requested Naming of cruises varies in many countries > hard to identify same cruises Date formats (mm/dd/yyyy; yy/mm/dd; dd/mm/yyyy etc) Ways to report the position (Lat/Long, UTM) Different export formats (plain text, xml, netCDF, etc) Different entities (one data set = data from one cruise or data from one station or data from one) Data set is too large to be downloaded (e.g. model data) Result: Can take a lot of time to create large homogenic data collections!

(Some) important WDCs for environmental data WDC for Atmospheric Trace Gases Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center USAWDC for Atmospheric Trace Gases WDC for Climate Model and Data Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology GERMANYWDC for Climate WDC for Glaciology, Boulder University of Colorado USAWDC for Glaciology, Boulder WDC for Marine Environmental Sciences Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) GERMANYWDC for Marine Environmental Sciences WDC for Marine Geology & Geophysics, Boulder USAWDC for Marine Geology & Geophysics, Boulder WDC for Oceanography, Silver Spring USAWDC for Oceanography, Silver Spring

Remember that WDC is a status! There are many national and international data centres as well which are no WDC e.g. ICES – International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, Denmark BODC – British Oceanographic Data Centre, UK BADC – British Atmospheric Data Centre, UK NODC – National Oceanographic Data Center, USA NMD - Norsk marint datasenter, Norway

World Data Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (WDC-MARE) at University of Bremen, Germany is aimed at collecting, scrutinizing, and disseminating data related to global change in the fields of environmental oceanography, marine geology, paleoceanography, and marine biology. It focuses on georeferenced data using the information system PANGAEA. The WDC stores and handles numeric, string, and image data. Users can retrieve data through the Internet via different gateways. offers data management services, in particular project data management and data publication. It maintains an inventory of site and sampling locations for all related fields. It provides hosting and mirroring of electronic journals and serves software products for analyzing, visualization, and transformation of data.

How to access dat via WDC-MARE or Data is available via www using the search engine PangaVista use it like E.g. Search by parameter, scientist, region, project, research vessel, institute, etc

You can either view the data online

Or dowload the data

Nice, but what else can I do with the data Since all data at WDC-MARE is archived in a relational database it can be easily converted to other formats like: Ocean Data View ArcGIS PanPlot (Open Source plotting software)

Pan2Application – converter for data from WDC-MARE

Ocean Data View Ocean Data View (ODV) is a software package for the interactive exploration, analysis and visualization of oceanographic and other geo-referenced profile or sequence data.

PanPlot

Networking between different data holders is essential The user can use one website in order to find metadata and data that is archived in many different data centres

Global Change Master Directory Gives access to metadata, but can be hard to find the data

Gives access to metadata and links directly to the data set

Thanks for listening! Questions? Comments?