Minutes, Heavner Bolder Visit

Minutes from Heavner's visit to NOAA, July 2, 2007

We discussed each step of the project and tried to fill in more details. In addition, Matt will look into the possibility of sending a Hollings scholar to NOAA next summer.

Purpose of Project
Description
Deliverables
Features to be Demonstrated by the Project
Preliminary Time Line for the Project

Purpose of Project

Access Alaska sensor data using OGC compliant services. Display the data, and correlate to orographic lift, precipitation, winds.

Collaboration between:

UAS Alaska -- Mat Heavner
NOAA GSD
NWS Juneau Forecast Office

Description

Access Matt Heavner's sensor data
- OGC-compliant Web service? KML, GML, SensorML?
- We discussed the possibilities here and decided that initially, we will take the data in comma separated values or KML off the current website.
- Matt has a student who is working on producing the KML and that effort will be completed by the end of the summer.
- We will also investigate OGC standards, and if possible and appropriate, convert the data to a more universal OGC standard (WFS?).
View Matt's sensor data
- On Google Earth
Ingest Matt's data into Ashvin's OpenGL prototype.
- Data is available off of the website: seamonsterak.com
- We are thinking we need a 30 m resolution grid.
- We will need map background as well for plotting the point data.
Ingest OGC-compliant Topographic data into Ashvin's OpenGL prototype.
- Where will we get this? Is there an existing WCS for this? This question still needs investigation.
- In the short-term, we can get DEM (Digital Elevation Model) data from Matt's GINA website: http://gina.uas.alaska.edu/joomla/
Ingest NWS Wind archive data in OGC-compliant format into Ashvin's OpenGL prototype.
- What format is it in? Can we make it OGC-compliant through a WCS?
- There are 3 possible sources of Wind data:
- Any source that is netcdf format is a candidate for the WCS web server planned for the DDF project in August so we need to coordinate with Mike Romberg and Tom Kent.
Calculate orographic lift using Topography and Wind data.
- Equations? Dot product Wind and Elevation.
Correlate Matt's data with orographic lift. What equations? Correlation coeffients? We did a very rough high-level outline of an analysis strategy that would hit all layers of the Earth Information System. The concept is based on an existing model written in C using IDL to predict snow melt on glaciers. (Available at ??)
- Begin by doing simple 1-1 correlations e.g. Wind and elevation, T and elevation, Precip and elevation, etc.
- If these correlations are not high enough, we may need to bring in more variables e.g. Wind, T, and elevation.
- Develop a predictive equation e.g. to predict the Wind given a certain elevation.
- Test this equation by removing data points and see how well it does.
- Create a predictive grid as a result.
- Based on the degree of confidence we have in this equation, determine optimum site(s) for additional sensors.
Demonstrate results.
- What kind of output do we want to see? Plots?
- Can we feedback results to extrapolate a gridded result?

Deliverables

A demonstration of:

Access to Alaska sensor data using web services;
Manipulation of the sensor data, not just display;
Display the results of the data manipulation (orographic lift);
Integration of the orographic lift graphic (or image) with the sensor data display.

Demonstrates

The value of OGC standards as a glue to bring together diverse data sets and further scientific inquiry.
Use of OpenGL gpu's to determine relationships between diverse data sets very efficiently.
Time matching of diverse data sets.
Sets stage for user-defined plug-ins to access and analyze diverse data sets, i.e., future funding.

Preliminary Time Line for SEAMONSTER/ISET/DDF project

(Dates are the deadlines for the task completion.)