Astro / Geo / Eco - Sciences Illustrative examples of success stories: Sloan digital sky survey: data portal for astronomy data, 1M+ users and nearly 1B queries. Sunfall: visual analytics tool for astrophysics. ACE: argumentation/abduction system to support paleolandform dating Prometheus: system for ecological modeling. eBirds: crowdsourcing project for species distribution and migration modeling ALERTS: Automated Land change Evaluation, Reporting and Tracking System

Astronomy Large Synoptic Sky Telescope (LSST) starts operation in 2018, will collect ~100PB of data within a decade Challenges 10’s of TB of data, 70K anomalies per night Tracking and classifying objects and events (possibly unknown) Opportunities Go beyond detection, to discovery of general theories/concepts Real-time alerting of discoveries Hybrid (human and automated) control of instruments Coordination of crowd-sourced science

Forensic Paleoclimatology NOAA Paleoclimatology Archive contains 7K cores up to 3km long, with 13 proxies measured at millimeter intervals Challenges Determine what happened to a set of unobserved variables over the course of time under the influence of (potentially unknown) processes Reconstruct and align the temporal history of material in core data of different types (glaciers, ocean sediments, trees) at different spatial and temporal scales Handle multiple competing hypotheses, model and data uncertainty Opportunities Improve reconstruction of past history of the climate Deduce causality and patterns in the global climate system Make better predictions about future climate Evaluating potential interventions

Earth Sciences Climate Model Intercomparison Project version 5 (CMIP5) expected to reach 2-3PB by 2013, satellites collect observations at high spatial and temporal resolutions Challenges Automatically identify (potentially constrained, generalized) patterns, causal relationships from large spatio-temporal datasets Simulations and observations – assimilation of data and models Provide interactive, highly responsive visualizations Opportunities Generate hypotheses for the underlying physical mechanisms Improve prediction and forecasting across temporal scales Early warning for transient events (e.g., hurricanes, tsunamis)

Cross-Cutting Themes Does “big science” have limits? Do have to go back to smaller groups but armed with better tools? “Anomaly detection” – requires powerful representation of current knowledge combined with social dimension to evaluate science, tools for replication, sharing, collaboration Integration of data, models, and a priori knowledge “Active Learning” for experiment / data selection, automated planning & control Representation of scientific arguments, consensus & controversy Understand communication among scientists, build tools to facilitate both collaboration and analysis tasks