Download Dr. Wilbert van Panhuis met with IEDRO in June to

IEDRO News
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IEDRO Named by NOAA to Support U.S. GCOS Program
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a request for
proposal (RFP) to support the U.S. Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), with
support activities scheduled to begin in August 2012. The RFP states that the winning
contractor will “facilitate various international data rescue projects of climate and weather
information in coordination and consultation with the International Environmental Data
Rescue Organization (IEDRO)”.
The task order contract, of undisclosed valued, consists of a one-year period and an
option of four additional years. It provides scientific and technical support services to the
U.S. GCOS Program Office in fulfillment of its international climate services mission.
Through this contract, NOAA plans to implement and manage various international
climate data rescue and digitization projects in Africa, Central America, South America
and the South Pacific regions.
IEDRO will deploy its scientific and technical teams to provide a host of our climate
services and products in support of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) while
adhering to scientific data stewardship principles. NOAA’s mission is to understand and
predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface
of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources.
GCOS, established in 1992, plans the collection of climate observational data
responding to the need for a comprehensive, long-term, global climate monitoring
system. These observations are critical to climate change detection, monitoring the
impacts of and response to climate change, generating climate data for application to
international economic development and research toward improved understanding,
modeling and prediction of the planet’s climate system. The program is co-sponsored by
the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Intergovernmental Oceanographic
Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
and the International Council for Science (ICSU).
2
WMO's Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS)
Implementation Plan Update
The final Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS) Implementation Plan and
Governance documents will be available after September 17, 2012. The World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) accepted comments on the First Order Draft and
Second Order Draft which closed on July 15 and August 17, respectively.
The GFCS, or Framework, was established at the WMO’s World Climate Conference-3
(WCC-3) in 2009 to strengthen essential climate services, including the Global Climate
Observing System (GCOS), and to ensure free and unrestricted exchange and access to
global climate data. It comprises a coordinated effort by organizations already involved
in providing and using climate information and services. The goal of uniting data
collection with data users is to improve the quality and volume of climate services
worldwide, especially for economically developing countries. Through the Framework,
organizations that collect and exchange climate data, undertake research and generate
climate information will help develop protocols and standards for data exchange
between themselves and other organizations. and the Framework will also help build
closer relationships between researchers, climate information providers and users –
improving accessibility to climate data for all.
The purpose of the Implementation Plan is to provide specific insight into the benefits
that the GFCS can provide in the near future in the four priority areas and how to
concretely achieve these by discerning necessary building blocks. IEDRO, as an
organization heavily involved in climate data rescue services, has a vested interest in
making significant contributions to the international effort contributing to the
implementation plan.
3
Geoscience Data Journal – Open Call for Papers with Datasets
The Royal Meteorological Society and John Wiley & Sons, Inc., announced the
Geoscience Data Journal in July. The new online-only journal publishes short, earth
science data papers that are cross-linked to datasets deposited in approved data
centers. The Journal offers an open-access platform for publishing scientific data in a
manner that includes scientific peer-review.
A data article describes a dataset, giving details of its collection, processing, software,
file formats etc, without the requirement of novel analyses or ground breaking
conclusions. It allows the reader to understand the when, how and why data was
collected and what the data-product is.
4
IEDRO Finds Common Goals with IRI and USAID
IEDRO met with Dr. Stephen Zebiak, International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate
and Society at Columbia University, and John Furlow, U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID). IEDRO currently utilizes IRI’s INGRID portal tools in our Data
Analysis and Visualization products and services. Collaborative efforts between climate
services providers, governmental agencies, NGOs, universities and nonprofit
organizations will only strengthen IEDRO’s reach and impact directly benefiting
developing countries.
5
Vaccine Monitoring Initiative and IEDRO
Dr. Wilbert van Panhuis met with IEDRO in June to discuss the vulnerability of
international public health data, at risk of degradation in paper format, and the need for
preservation and digitization along with open access.
Van Panhuis is the lead investigator at the University of Pittsburgh’s Project Tycho, an
online database containing the entire digitized history of the U.S. weekly National
Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) since 1888. This project is part of the
Vaccine Modeling Initiative (VMI) funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The
University of Pittsburgh’s Public Health Dynamics lab uses public health data for
computational modeling.
IEDRO’s own data rescue and digitization efforts support research into disease
vectorization. The overlaps between our data rescue efforts have worldwide benefit and
applications to mankind.
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CSP and ICCS 2
From September 5-7, IEDRO will be attending the International Conference on Climate
Change II (ICCS 2) at the Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium (RASAB)
in Brussels. The Climate Service Partnership will provide an update on its activities while
the goal of the conference is to facilitate the development of a Climate Service
Enterprise (CSE), an international collaboration in Climate Services providers and users.
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UNESCO Digitization and Preservation Conference - September
26-28, 2012
Meet IEDRO at UNESCO’s “The Memory of the World in the Digital Age: Digitization and
Preservation” conference in Vancouver. This conference will provide stakeholders an
opportunity to assess current digitization practices and policies and to propose
recommendations to ensure permanent access to our digital documentary heritage. We
look forward to connecting with fellow digital information preservationists and meeting
additional members of the International Council for Science (ICSU) Committee on Data
for Science and Technology (CODATA) Data at Risk Task Group (DARTG).