Global Change Information System GCIS ESIP Summer Meeting

Global Change Information System (GCIS) ESIP Summer Meeting – GCIS Breakout Session July 9, 2014 Robert Wolfe – USGCRP GCIS Technical Lead www. globalchange. gov

Overview • Background and Status of the GCIS – Who are we? – What are we doing now? – What are our plans for the future? 2

U. S. Global Change Research Program The Program: • Coordinates Federal research to better understand prepare the nation for global change • Prioritizes and supports cutting edge scientific work in global change • Assesses the state of scientific knowledge and the Nation’s readiness to respond to global change • Communicates research findings to inform, educate, and engage the global community

Staff (some of many contributors) U. S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), National Coordination Office (NCO): Robert Wolfe 1, Curt Tilmes 1, Steve Aulenbach 2, Brian Duggan 2, Justin Goldstein 2, Amanda Mc. Queen 2, Julie Morris 2, Glynis Lough 2 National Climate Assessment (NCA) Technical Support Unit (TSU): David Easterling 3, Paula Hennon 4, Angel Li 4, April Sides 6, Mark Phillips 5, Sarah Champion 4, Andrew Buddenberg 4, Devin Thomas 6 Habitat Seven (NCA Web Design and Development): Jamie Herring, Phil Evans, Aires Almeida, Graham Blair Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Tetherless World Constellation (TWC) (Semantic Web Information Modeling): Peter Fox, Xiaogang Ma, Patrick West, Jin Zheng Forum One (globalchange. gov Web Design, Development and Integration): Michael Rader, John Schneider, Keenan Holloway, Sarah Le. Nguyen 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. NASA University Corporation for Atmospheric Research NOAA/NCDC The Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS), North Carolina State University National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC), UNC Asheville ERT, Inc. 4

Global Change Research Act (1990), Section 106 …not less frequently than every 4 years, the Council… shall prepare… an assessment which– • integrates, evaluates, and interprets the findings of the Program and discusses the scientific uncertainties associated with such findings; • analyzes the effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity; and • analyzes current trends in global change, both human- induced and natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years. 5

National Climate Assessments Climate Change Impacts on the United States (2000) Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States (2009) Climate Change Impacts in the United States (2014) See: http: //globalchange. gov/ 6

Global Change Information System (GCIS) Long Term Vision: The Global Change Information System (GCIS) is intended to eventually become a unified web based source of authoritative, accessible, usable and timely information about climate and global change for use by scientists, decision makers, and the public. 7

Global Change Information System (GCIS) Long Term Vision: The Global Change Information System (GCIS) is intended to eventually become a unified web based source of authoritative, accessible, usable and timely information about climate and global change for use by scientists, decision makers, and the public. Initial Prototype: Coincident with the release of the Third National Climate Assessment (NCA) or May 6 2014, the GCIS supports the distribution, presentation and documentation needs of the NCA, integrating that content into the USGCRP web site and demonstrating the potential for GCIS to support the long term vision. 8

Information Quality Act • • Reproducibility means that the information is capable of being substantially reproduced, subject to an acceptable degree of imprecision. For information judged to have more (less) important impacts, the degree of imprecision that is tolerated is reduced (increased). With respect to analytic results, "capable of being substantially reproduced'' means that independent analysis of the original or supporting data using identical methods would generate similar analytic results, subject to an acceptable degree of imprecision or error. Transparency is not defined in the OMB Guidelines, but the Supplementary Information to the OMB Guidelines indicates (p. 8456) that "transparency" is at the heart of the reproducibility standard. The Guidelines state that "The purpose of the reproducibility standard is to cultivate a consistent agency commitment to transparency about how analytic results are generated: the specific data used, the various assumptions employed, the specific analytic methods applied, and the statistical procedures employed. If sufficient transparency is achieved on each of these matters, then an analytic result should meet the reproducibility standard. " In other words, transparency and ultimately reproducibility - is a matter of showing how you got the results you got. http: //www. cio. noaa. gov/services_programs/IQ_Guidelines_011812. html 9

Complete Traceability for NCA Content Transparency ------------------------------------ Reproducibility Traceable Data Traceable Processes • References • Image sources • Data sources • Link to datasets • Complete metadata • Description of methods • Access to process info & review Traceable Tools • Access to computer code • Description of systems and platforms Easier. . . Harder Traceable Sources

Data and The National Climate Assessment The Challenge • • More than 250 named authors (>1000 contributing!) 827 pages 43 Chapters and Appendices 284 Figures More than 600 Images 3395 References Approximately 83 data sources used across as many as 235 instances 11

Data and National Climate Assessment The Solution • Defined categories of information within the report: – Figure – Image – Data Source • Build a process for collecting source information that will satisfy IQA and HISA requirements: – Named sources and contacts for every figure, image, and data source – Web-based survey that requests inputs that address transparency and reproducibility and build a foundation for providing the Metadata ISO 19115 standard – IT infrastructure that connects and promotes automation between the web-based survey, a structured data server (SDS)/GCIS, and publication to an official, interactive NCA web site 12

globalchange. gov - v 2. 0 13

National Climate Assessment 2014 14

GCIS Structured Data Server 15

Data and The National Climate Assessment The Solution globalchange. gov website NCA Resources Site Web Form ATRAC/XML File Generator Structured Data Server Metadata Entry 16

Dataset metadata from a figure 17

Dataset metadata from a image in a figure 18

GCIS Structured Data Server • Capture – Obtain from a variety of sources: manual input by trusted parties – support staff, agency partners, data centers; automated harvesting from publishers, agency data centers, etc. • Identify – Assign persistent, resolvable, controlled identifiers to each element. • Organize – Capture, discover and represent relationships between elements, including across various types of elements; across data centers; and across agency boundaries. • Present – Provide machine accessible interfaces to retrieve structured metadata, and to search/data mine it. • Maintain – Develop tools and processes to ensure quality and integrity of database contents over time. 19

Global Change Content Elements • Reports, Figures, Images, Research Papers, Journals, Measurements, Datasets, Instruments, Agencies, Projects, People, Models, Algorithms, … • Findings – “Climate is changing. ” “Sea Level is Rising. ” • Concepts: “Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health” “Adaptation” 20

Machine Accessible Metadata globalchange. gov website NCA Resources Site Web Form ATRAC/XML File Generator Structured Data Server 21

GCIS Database/API RESTful API at data. globalchange. gov URLs correspond to ontology URIs Primary storage : RDBMS (Postgre. SQL) Representation is serialized (for JSON) or used in templates (for Turtle) • Turtle representation is exported into a triple store (Virtuoso) which provides a SPARQL endpoint. • • 22

GCIS Ontology (version 1. 2) (a) Classes and properties representing a brief structure of the NCA 3

(b) Classes and properties relevant to the findings of the NCA 3 and each chapter in it 24

(c) Classes and properties about sensors, instruments, platforms, and algorithms, etc. through which datasets are generated 25

A few classes are asserted as sub-classes of PROV-O classes Full GCIS Ontology documents are available at: http: //tw. rpi. edu/web/project/gcis-imsap/GCISOntology 26

SPARQL Example • http: //data. globalchange. gov/examples • List 10 figures and datasets from which they were derived select ? figure, ? dataset FROM <http: //data. globalchange. gov> where { ? figure gcis: has. Image ? img prov: was. Derived. From ? dataset } limit 10 27

Two Parallel Paths 1. Third National Climate Assessment (NCA 3) Traceable Sources • References • Image sources • Data sources Traceable Data Traceable Processes • Link to datasets • Description of • Complete metadata methods • Access to process info & review Traceable Tools • Access to computer code • Description of systems and platforms 2. GCIS

Two Parallel Paths 1. NCA 3 release Traceable Sources • References • Image sources • Data sources Traceable Data Traceable Processes • Link to datasets • Description of • Complete metadata methods • Access to process info & review 2. Populate GCIS Traceable Tools • Access to computer code • Description of systems and platforms

Data and GCIS The Future globalchange. gov website Structured Data Server 30

Schedule 2013 2014 Now (7/9) 2015 2016 Release (5/6) NCA Report Initial data sets Full data sets Indicators Demo Pilot Health Assessment Ontology Improvements Sustained NCA Earth Observation Assessment (possible support) 31

Questions and Comments For more information visit http: //www. globalchange. gov and http: //data. globlchange. gov

Backup

Outline for Third NCA Report • • Letter to the American People Executive Summary: Report Findings Introduction Our Changing Climate Sectors & Sectoral Cross-cuts Regions & Biogeographical Cross-cuts Responses – Decision support – Mitigation – Adaptation • Agenda for Climate Change Science • The NCA Long-term Process • Appendices – Commonly Asked Questions – Expanded Climate Science Info 34

Regions & Biogeographical Cross-Cuts Oceans and Marine Resources Coasts, Development, and Ecosystems

Sectors Water Resources Energy Supply and Use Transportation Agriculture Forestry Ecosystems and Biodiversity • Human Health • • •

Sectoral Cross-Cuts • Water, Energy, and Land Use • Urban Systems, Infrastructure, and Vulnerability • Impacts of Climate Change on Tribal, Indigenous, and Native Lands and Resources • Land Use and Land Cover Change • Rural Communities • Biogeochemical Cycles

Global Change Keywords (GCMD) Sample finding: Certain types of extreme weather events have become more frequent and intense, including heat waves, floods, and droughts in some regions. The increased intensity of heat waves has been most prevalent in the western parts of the country, while the intensity of flooding events has been more prevalent over the eastern parts. Droughts in the Southwest and heat waves everywhere are projected to become more intense in the future. GCMD v 8. 0 • • • ATMOSPHERIC/OCEAN INDICATORS > EXTREME WEATHER > EXTREME PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION RATE EXTREME WEATHER > HEAT/COLD WAVE FREQUENCY/INTENSITY NATURAL HAZARDS > HEAT NATURAL HAZARDS > FLOODS, PRECIPITATION > PRECIPITATION AMOUNT PRECIPITATION >RAIN SURFACE WATER > FLOODS ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA > DROUGHT, EXTREME WEATHER > EXTREME DROUGHT, NATURAL HAZARDS > DROUGHTS 38