Next-generation information system for Earth science data

Abstract

Many scientific data archives today are highly inflexible collections of static data objects that can be retrieved and distributed, but not easily manipulated to suit the users' requirements. Scientists, as well as their analysis and visualization tools, are significantly restricted by the limitations of data archive centers. These limitations include inability of the data centers to search archives based on the data content, inaccurate and ineffective geographic searches on swath data, inability to subset data products, lack of custom data products, lack of choices for gridding schemes and limitation of format choices. The Next Generation Information System being developed under the auspices of NASA's Passive Microwave Earth Science Information Partner (PM-ESIP) will address all the above limitations. This innovative system is being built around the flexible and extensible Algorithm Development and Mining System (ADaM) developed by the Information Technology and SYstems Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. ADaM provides an extensible framework for data mining and other types of processing including subsetting, gridding and mapping. The main emphasis for the design of the new PM-ESIP information system is to allow the user flexibility and ease in accessing and utilizing data. The PM-ESIP's next generation information system will be a scaleable distributed processing system that can grow as the need of the user community for on-demand processing increases. This paper will discus the design of this system along with some of the technology being used to build it.