|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PI: Brian Doty
|
|
Institute of Global Environment & Society, Inc
|
|
|
Enhancing GrADS, GDS and Greta to Support Multi-Member, Multi-Model and Multi-Format Earth System Science Data
|
|
|
| The Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) is an interactive desktop tool used for the analysis and display of data. GrADS
handles both gridded and in situ data in a variety of formats. The GrADS Data Server (GDS) is an OPeNDAP server that provides
remote data access, subsetting, and server-side analysis for all the data formats and data types that GrADS supports. Greta is a
web-based search engine that collects metadata from any number of GrADS Data Servers and creates a searchable master catalogue
for those servers. GrADS, GDS, and Greta were developed and are maintained at the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies
(COLA). These open source tools provide a broad range of capabilities, including data discovery, metadata search, distributed data
access and analysis, and end-user display. The flexible interfaces to these tools provide rich opportunities for future software
integration. Together, these tools form a core cyberinfrastructure for scientific investigation of the Earth's weather and climate. The
initial implementation of GrADS was supported by the NASA Applied Information Systems Research (AISR) program in the early
1990s. Since then, GrADS has become the data analysis and display tool of choice in the meteorological, oceanographic and land
surface modeling, simulation and analysis research communities. GrADS and GDS are used worldwide by thousands of researchers
and educators for distributed access, analysis, and display of Earth science data. Earth system modelers at NASA Goddard
(Laboratory for Atmospheres and Global Modeling and Assimilation Office) have taken great advantage of these tools, recognizing in
2004 the ¿huge impact on our science¿ that GrADS has made. We now propose to the NASA AISR program to enhance GrADS, the
GDS, and Greta to enable these software components to support improved interactive analysis, batch data processing, and visualization
of data sets of critical importance to NASA¿s Earth science mission. The proposed enhancements will increase the software's access
and analysis capabilities, increase their scope to include Graphical Information System (GIS) applications, and enhance the user
interface to improve the integration of data search and discovery. The proposed software enhancements will directly serve the goals of
the AISR program, particularly increasing the productivity of NASA Science Mission Directorate research activities and fostering
interdisciplinary collaborations across the Earth sciences. The proposed work directly addresses the area of interest of the AISR
program that includes enhancements to persistent software tools that assist productivity of users of NASA¿s high-end computing
resources, specifically those who are engaged in Earth system modeling. |
|
|
