A Web-Based Geovisual Analytical System for Climate Studies

Min Sun, Jing Li, Chaowei Yang, Gavin A. Schmidt, Myra Bambacus, Robert Cahalan, Qunying Huang, Chen Xu, Erik U. Noble and Zhenlong Li
Additional contact information
Min Sun: Center of Intelligent Spatial Computing for Water/Energy Science, College of Science, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
Jing Li: Center of Intelligent Spatial Computing for Water/Energy Science, College of Science, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
Chaowei Yang: Center of Intelligent Spatial Computing for Water/Energy Science, College of Science, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
Gavin A. Schmidt: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, NY 10025, USA
Myra Bambacus: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Robert Cahalan: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Qunying Huang: Center of Intelligent Spatial Computing for Water/Energy Science, College of Science, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
Chen Xu: Center of Intelligent Spatial Computing for Water/Energy Science, College of Science, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
Erik U. Noble: Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado Boulder, 1333 Grandview Avenue, Campus Box 488, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
Zhenlong Li: Center of Intelligent Spatial Computing for Water/Energy Science, College of Science, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA

Future Internet, 2012, vol. 4, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: Climate studies involve petabytes of spatiotemporal datasets that are produced and archived at distributed computing resources. Scientists need an intuitive and convenient tool to explore the distributed spatiotemporal data. Geovisual analytical tools have the potential to provide such an intuitive and convenient method for scientists to access climate data, discover the relationships between various climate parameters, and communicate the results across different research communities. However, implementing a geovisual analytical tool for complex climate data in a distributed environment poses several challenges. This paper reports our research and development of a web-based geovisual analytical system to support the analysis of climate data generated by climate model. Using the ModelE developed by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) as an example, we demonstrate that the system is able to (1) manage large volume datasets over the Internet; (2) visualize 2D/3D/4D spatiotemporal data; (3) broker various spatiotemporal statistical analyses for climate research; and (4) support interactive data analysis and knowledge discovery. This research also provides an example for managing, disseminating, and analyzing Big Data in the 21st century.

Keywords: geospatial cyberinfrastructure; big data; spatiotemporal; WebGIS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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