Subject: [ESP] Invitation to next ESP Meeting

From: Christopher Kerr <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 10:35:58 -0400

ESP Member:

The next Earth Science Portal Meeting is going to be held on September 29 and 
30, 2003 at the Daresbury Laboratory, England. The workshop will focus on 
Data Portal Design and Meta Data. (That title should not supprise anyone!)

Following the format of our last meeting at NCAR, we would like to keep the 
discussions highly interactive and hence keep the number of partipants to a 
reasonable number. If you have any colleagues from other institutions who you 
think should attend, let me know and I will send them an invitation.

Please send me the title of a talk that you would like to give and any other 
thoughts on the format of the meeting.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Christopher

-- 
Dr. Christopher L. Kerr
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
Forrestal Campus
Princeton University                             
Princeton, New Jersey  08542
Telephone: (609) 452-6573
Fax:       (609) 987-5063
Email:     [email-masked]
Web:       http://www.gfdl.gov/~ck

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From: "Dean N. Williams" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 07:44:50 -0700

Chris,

    Since we will be in Europe, we should try to get other 
representatives to attend the workshop (i.e., perhaps folks from ECMWF, 
and PRISM). I see from your mailing list that Gregory will be attending. 
This is very good...

-Dean

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From: "Glenn Rutledge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 12:10:48 -0400

Chris-
As per Dean's last note, I've forwarded your invitation to Reinhard 
Budich (Director PRISM) and to Eric Guilyardi (CAPRI).  We have agreed 
to explore collaborations under NOMADS, so this meeting should be of 
interest to both Reinhard and Eric.  Please forward the Agenda and any 
other information on this meeting on to them when it becomes available.

I will be responding with some suggested Agenda topics as well.  I am 
also looking into a Unidata (NetCDF) representative to attend.  Thanks, 
Glenn

Dean N. Williams wrote:
>> The next Earth Science Portal Meeting is going to be held on September 
>> 29 and 30, 2003 at the Daresbury Laboratory, England. The workshop 
>> will focus on Data Portal Design and Meta Data. (That title should not 
>> supprise anyone!)
>>
>> Following the format of our last meeting at NCAR, we would like to 
>> keep the discussions highly interactive and hence keep the number of 
>> partipants to a reasonable number. If you have any colleagues from 
>> other institutions who you think should attend, let me know and I will 
>> send them an invitation.
>>
>> Please send me the title of a talk that you would like to give and any 
>> other thoughts on the format of the meeting.
>>
> _______________________________________________
> ESP mailing list
> [email-masked]
> http://mailman.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/esp

---

From: "Glenn Rutledge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 10:04:10 -0400

Chris-
Here's my input for the subject meeting.  They are somewhat random 
thoughts, but hopefully will help you develop the Agenda for further 
discussion and consideration.

1) the selection and development or support of several 
standards/conventions for multiple data formats and metadata.

Particularly NetCDF and GRIB/BUFR formats; and COARDS/CF conventions. 
WHere do these fall short?  How to leverage this work with other 
projects efforts such as THREDDS.

2) Long term goal?--- The adoption and promotion of a WMO based 
convergence of formats.  While NetCDF has gained popularity, it is not a 
good archive format (volume). It's also a pblm for NCEP.  While GRIB is 
a good archive and processing format, it does not have the utilities, or 
ease of use that NetCDF has.  Data/File management systems such as MARS 
are good examples of the need for a single format / description- however 
is it realistic in a distributed environment at least in the short term 
for us to pursue?   Thus the need to at least propose WMO based 
convergence for our data.  I don't believe in this for the short term, 
and who will champion this?  So, in the meantime:

3) The interoperability between the CLimate (NetCDF) and Weather 
(GRIB/BUFR) communities is requested and needs to be considered.

4) Discussion on attribution to agencies/data centers and providers is 
needed.  How should we approach this?  How should I (NOMADS) operate 
under / with ESG, NCAR, CDC, the Ocean side (NVODS or GODAE) or NERC 
DataGrid, PRISM and CAPRI project or BADC?

5) intercomparison btwn gridded models and btwn gridded models and 
observational (in-situ) datasets needs consideration.

6) The aspect of a common portal may be difficult to achieve.  UNder 
NOMADS, the framework allows multiple portals representing each 
participating centers own unique interests, but provides 
interoperabiltiy based upon DODS/ and hopefully a metadata convention 
that this group addresses.  One single entry point maybe showing logo's 
of participating centers/project as discussed in the past may suffice: 
"Powered by ESG" or "Powered by NOMADS or DODS", etc. The point is to 
provide the framework for new users and more importantly new data 
providers under a distributed network.  The grid is the logical 
extension of this but of course has some development yet to achieve.  As 
does search capabilities outlined in THREDDS or the Digital Libraries 
efforts.  I still look to these efforts for resolve- so their efforts 
and directions should be considered.

7) real-world science projects or experiments need to be forged using 
these technologies between collaborating centers (e.g., ECMWF or Hadley 
and NCAR, GFDL, PCMDI).

Regards, Glenn

---

From: Jonathan Gregory <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 10:57:34 +0100

Dear Glenn

When discussing file formats (such as netCDF) and metadata standards (such
as CF) it may be helpful to distinguish the two of them. Most of CF is more
abstract than netCDF file format and can equally well apply to other kinds of
file that could contain metadata, such as xml (hence its relevance to cdml
and ncml). For interoperability it is very helpful to adopt a common metadata
standard, regardless of file format. So long as the different file formats
used can contain the metadata concepts and support the same ideas of data
organisation, translation between them should be relatively straightforward.
That reduces the need to adopt a common file format, which may be more
difficult to agree on.

Best wishes

Jonathan

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From: Bryan Lawrence <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 12:59:52 +0100

Folks

I think Glenn's provided a list of issues which most of us would agree are 
important in one way or another. However, I suspect there are too many of 
them for a two day meeting, and we would end up with a show and tell, and 
we'd all walk away, with no progress on the issues and no real momentum with 
which to go forward.  Meanwhile, I'll follow up on some of Glenn's issues in 
another email.

Do we have any consensus about what this meeting is for? My feeling is that 
this meeting is about portals. I would rather we concentrated on what 
technology we have available for portals, what the portals should be doing, 
who is doing what, and how we can interoperate etc. I'd be happy to propose 
some more specific items for an agenda if that's a consensus opinion about 
what this meeting should achieve.

Bryan

On Thursday 03 July 2003 15:04, Glenn Rutledge wrote:
> > The next Earth Science Portal Meeting is going to be held on September 29
> > and 30, 2003 at the Daresbury Laboratory, England. The workshop will
> > focus on Data Portal Design and Meta Data. (That title should not
> > supprise anyone!)
> >
> > Following the format of our last meeting at NCAR, we would like to keep
> > the discussions highly interactive and hence keep the number of
> > partipants to a reasonable number. If you have any colleagues from other
> > institutions who you think should attend, let me know and I will send
> > them an invitation.
> >

-- 
Bryan Lawrence, Head NCAS/British Atmospheric Data Centre
web: www.badc.nerc.ac.uk  phone: +44 1235 445012
CLRC: Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, OX110QX, UK

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From: Steve Hankin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 15:46:39 -0700

Hi Bryan et. al.,

At our last (first) ESP meeting we agreed that an effective strategy would be to
write a cookbook on "Creating Your Earth Science Data Portal" (or something to
that effect.)  That still seems like the right strategy.  It is "outcomes
oriented" (which will keep the managers happy.)  And it provides us with a
community-building tool.

A good purpose for the September meeting would be to evaluate and improve upon a
first draft of such a cookbook -- identify gaps and strategic opportunities based
upon what we produce initially.  To follow such a plan we will need to get
ourselves in harness and complete a draft by mid-September.  We can do this.   We
need to agree upon an outline and parcel out the writing tasks based upon that.
(I believe that this was our intended tack as of the last ESP meeting.)

Should we push forward with this plan?  Does a draft outline already exist?  I
believe that we had notes on it by the end of our last meeting, but I don't find
it at http://nomads.gfdl.noaa.gov/~ck/esp/webpages/

    - steve

=================================================

--

Steve Hankin, NOAA/PMEL -- [email-masked]
7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115-0070
ph. (206) 526-6080, FAX (206) 526-6744

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From: Roland Schweitzer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 18:22:51 -0500

All,

Yes, I too recall that this was the task we assigned ourselves.  I also 
recall that we listed a few specific required recipes.

I actually started writing such a cookbook.  I've attached my meager 
(mostly fluff to this point) effort.  Somehow as often happens, I ran 
out of steam quickly when other things started shouting for my 
attention.  I'd be happy to expand on the OPeNDAP server recipe after I 
get back from vacation.

Roland

---

From: Benno Blumenthal <[email-masked]>
Date: 08 Jul 2003 09:57:48 -0400

> what this meeting should achieve.

While your point is well-taken that Glenn has provided an extensive list
of issues that might be difficult to handle in a short meeting, that
fact remains that the best way (in my opinion) to create data portals is
to solve the data organization/distribution problems that Glenn lists. 
Once the data is well-organized/documented and on readily accessible
servers such as DODS/THREDDS -- any corresponding client is a data
portal.   I already have such a web-based client
(iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu) whose entire interface is derived from the
structure presented in a THREDDS document (and the subdocuments/datasets
that are referenced), and there are (or will be soon) others.

On the other hand, the reverse is not true: simply creating a web-based
interface will not get us the data interoperability needed.   And an
human-operated interface to poorly organized/documented data does not
get one very far.

Benno

-- 
Dr. M. Benno Blumenthal          [email-masked]
International Research Institute for climate prediction
The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Lamont Campus, Palisades NY 10964-8000   (845) 680-4450

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From: Ethan Davis <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2003 10:47:54 -0600

> human-operated interface to poorly organized/documented data does not

Hi all,

I think Bryan and Benno both make good points. For me, what ties them together 
are two questions:

1) What are the desired capabilities of the portal framework?
2) What information does the portal need to satisfy those capabilities?

 From there we can attack the painful question of

3) How do various standards/formats map into the required information set?

It is also important to remember that different portal sites are going to have 
different setups including not having all the required/desired information. Do 
we need levels of required information that map onto levels of portal 
capabilities? How do we provide for adding ancillary information to satisfy the 
requirements without requiring a complete reshuffle of existing metadata?

Once we're talking about available technologies we need to focus on both 
technologies for portals themselves and technologies for metadata and format 
interoperability.

Ethan

-- 
Ethan R. Davis                       Telephone: (303) 497-8155
Software Engineer                    Fax:       (303) 497-8690
UCAR Unidata Program Center          E-mail:    [email-masked]
P.O. Box 3000
Boulder, CO  80307-3000              http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/