Progress Report on the ASCII for Science Data, Airborne and Geospatial Working Groups of the 2014 ESDSWG for MEaSUREs

Keith D Evans1, Dr. Nickolay Anatoly Krotkov2, Chris A Mattmann3, Maziyar Boustani3, Emily Law3, Helen Conover4, Gao Chen5, Stephen W Olding6 and Jeff Walter2, (1)University of Maryland Baltimore County, GESTAR II, Baltimore, MD, United States, (2)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (3)NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, (4)Univ of Alabama Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, United States, (5)NASA Langley Research Ctr, Hampton, United States, (6)Columbus Technologies and Services Arlington, Arlington, VA, United States
Abstract:
The Earth Science Data Systems Working Groups (ESDSWG) were setup by NASA HQ 10 years ago. The role of the ESDSWG is to make recommendations relevant to NASA’s Earth science data systems from users experiences. Each group works independently focussing on a unique topic. Participation in ESDSWG groups comes from a variety of NASA-funded science and technology projects, NASA information technology experts, affiliated contractor staff and other interested community members from academia and industry. Recommendations from the ESDSWG groups will enhance NASA’s efforts to develop long term data products.

The ASCII for Science Data Working Group (WG) will define a minimum set of information that should be included in ASCII file headers so that the users will be able to access the data using only the header information. After reviewing various use cases, such as field data and ASCII data exported from software tools, and reviewing ASCII data guidelines documentation, this WG will deliver guidelines for creating ASCII files that contain enough header information to allow the user to access the science data.

The Airborne WG’s goal is to improve airborne data access and use for NASA science. The first step is to evaluate the state of airborne data and make recommendations focusing on data delivery to the DAACs (data centers). The long term goal is to improve airborne data use for Earth Science research. Many data aircraft observations are reported in ASCII format. The ASCII and Airborne WGs seem like the same group, but the Airborne WG is concerned with maintaining and using airborne for science research, not just the data format.

The Geospatial WG focus is on the interoperability issues of Geospatial Information System (GIS) and remotely sensed data, in particular, focusing on DAAC(s) data from NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise. This WG will provide a set of tools (GIS libraries) to use with training and/or cookbooks through the use of Open Source technologies.

A progress report on these groups from the 2014 ESDSWG will be presented.

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