Improving the process of getting data to drive models: The OOI-CI & IOOS-DMAC Intersection Development Project

This project is intended to improve the automated processing and transfer of data needed by regional models for forcing and assimilation. Currently research modelers spend a good portion of their time first determining where to access data, such as observations or other models’ output for initialization, and then creating and maintaining automated methods to retrieve the data. In the process they create ad hoc connections through various organizations. Through this project, NSF’s Ocean Observatories Initiative - Cyber Infrastructure (OOI-CI) and NOAA’s Integrated Ocean Observing System - Data Management and Communications (IOOS-DMAC) will provide a standardized, reliable and efficient system for research modelers to access the data they need freeing them to do actual research. At the same time this project will enhance the methods used to manipulate and disseminate the data to the scientific community and provide format conversions so research modelers can more readily use the data.

This project will improve the process by which research modelers access data to drive their models. We will do this in two ways:
(1) We will transfer observations and model output from the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO’s) Global Telecommunication System (GTS) into the OOI-CI infrastructure. OOI-CI will in turn present these data to the modelers via a Unidata Thematic Real-time Environmental Distributed Data Services (THREDDS) catalog and subscription service. (2) We will enhance the methods used to access data using ingestion and transformation services to support new data streams.