Improving Data User Accessibility to Investigation Notable Events

Abstract:

The Airborne Data Management Group (ADMG) is part of NASA’s Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT) that works to support data archivers and science data users from various airborne and field investigation communities. ADMG is creating an inventory of NASA’s sub-orbital (airborne and field) investigations to improve accessibility to data collected by and for these communities. One way the inventory does this is by highlighting notable events for campaigns. A notable event is defined as a period of time in which a phenomena relevant to the campaign’s science objectives occurs. This may be when most of the campaign’s instruments are operating and collect an abundance of high quality data from a diverse suite of sensors, or when a specific natural process or event takes place. For example, a notable event could be an atmospheric river moving through the study area while all of the instruments and platforms are operating. Airborne and field campaigns often collect data over long periods, and within these longer periods there are short, intense periods of notable events. In this presentation, we describe how ADMG is working to catalog documented details of notable events and provide more efficient discovery of notable events and their data via the ADMG airborne and field inventory. The difficulties users encounter when looking for notable events in campaigns are highlighted and the utility of the inventory for speeding data discovery and access is described. We conclude the presentation with best practice suggestions that both principal investigators and data centers can employ to improve access to notable events in data products.