e GY activities related to WGISS

1. eGY activities related to WGISS The Electronic Geophysical Year Bernd Ritschel, European eGY Committee rit@gfz-potsdam.de *Slides are provided by eGY member CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services, WGISS-24, Oberpfaffenhofen, Oct. 15 - 19, 2007

2. eGY Kick off in Perugia • eGY officially began on 7 July 2007 at the IUGG General Assembly in Perugia • Declaration for an Earth and Space Science Information Commons: http://egy.org/declaration.php • Article 1: Data access • Earth system data and information should be made available electronically with interoperable approaches … • Article 2: Data release • Owners, custodians, and creators of Earth system data should work together to share their digital information … • more Articles about: Data description, Data persistence, Data rescue, Common standards and cooperation, Capability building, Education and public outreach CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services, WGISS-24, Oberpfaffenhofen, Oct. 15 - 19, 2007

3. VOiG Confernce 2007 • 1. Virtual Observatories in Geosciences (VOiG) conference, Denver, June, 2007, http://www.voig.net • 70 participants in work-shop and the main conference • results of the meeting will be made available in two forms: • peer-reviewed proceedings of about 10 submissions for special issue in new journal Earth Science Informatics • a full volume on Virtual Observatories in Geosciences to be published in AGU Geophysical Monograph series. • based on the success, there is planned to hold another VOiG conference in Denver, September 2008 (P. Fox) CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services, WGISS-24, Oberpfaffenhofen, Oct. 15 - 19, 2007

4. ESSI Division at EGU http://meetings.copernicus.org/egu2008/ CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services, WGISS-24, Oberpfaffenhofen, Oct. 15 - 19, 2007

5. MMI Project endors eGY http://marinemetadata.org/ CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services, WGISS-24, Oberpfaffenhofen, Oct. 15 - 19, 2007

6. Events • Nature Article: Geophysicists Combine Forces" Nature 447, 1037 (28 June 2007) • eGY National Committee for China Established, 25 September 2007 • eGY Demonstration Projects at Fall AGU Meeting 2007 • eGY Session Proposals Due Soon for 2008 AGU Joint Assembly,http://www.agu.org/meetings/ja08/. • Earth & Space Science Informatics Summit, Rom, 13-14th March 2008 CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services, WGISS-24, Oberpfaffenhofen, Oct. 15 - 19, 2007

7. eGY and WDCs Recent activities and pronouncements: • The WDCs have resolved to ensure relevance to new ICSU programs including GEO/GEOSS, IPY and eGY • WDC Panel has asked the eGY participants to help with certification of the WDCs. This certification is a result of ICSU’s desire to have the WDCs become more effective and relevant to ICSU programs. • The eGY is preparing recommendations for ICSU for the improvement and evolution of the WDCs • eGY has representatives on the ICSU Strategic Committee for Information and Data (SCID) which will make recommendations to ICSU on the future of the WDC system by October 2008.

8. International eGY Conference Held • Conference agenda • IGY: scientific results 50 years later • Electronic Geophysical Year (eGY) and its prolongation • International Polar Year (IPY), International Geophysical Year • Contemporary problems of geoinformatics in the changing world • Natural calamities and risks in the modern world • Global changes and climate • Russian-French research on the Earth’s physics, geodynamics, volcanology and seismic danger estimate based on satellite and terrestrial technology • Declaration from the Conference to be issued soon • First meeting of the Ad-Hoc CODATA Working Group for the eGY

9. www.eSWua.ingv.it The eSWua system supports the acquisition, elaboration, evaluation, sharing and archiving of multi-instruments observations of the ionized atmosphere. A dynamic web site has been recently opened for a real-time access to these data. eSWua is a contribution to those international projects where the interoperability of the system and effective data access are necessary requirements, such as Virtual Observatories and ICESTAR.

10. GPS for weather and space weather forecast: Cross-link between ICESTAR/IHY and POLENET Contact: defranceschi@ingv.it; capra.alessandro@unimore.it Polar-ionosphere imaging over Antarctica using GPS data is of great challenge due to poor coverage of ground-based GPS receivers. However, as the POLENET network has been proposed, the study of the ionosphere over the southern polar cap by radio tomography becomes promising. The new imaging technique, MIDAS (Bath Un.-UK), assimilates different kind of data (ionosondes, backscattering radars, GPS data and scintillation indices), and ingests also models to reconstruct the spatial-temporal condition of the ionospheric plasma. Ray paths between GPS satellites and ground receivers from current and planned POLENET sites.

11. Madrigal data in AstroGrid HelioScope • AstroGrid (www.astrogrid.org) is the UK VO project, part of IVOA (www.ivoa.net ). • HelioScope is a tool allowing retrieval of a variety of Solar System data for a specified time range • Based on a standard protocol for time-range queries: STAP http://wiki.astrogrid.org/bin/view/Astrogrid/SimpleTimeAccessProtocol • Data from the Madrigal database has been linked up with HelioScope via STAP.

12. Madrigal data in HelioScope:

13. IPY Cluster Project #63 Heliosphere Impact on Geospace Kick-off Workshop, Finnish Meteorological Institute Helsinki, Finland, 5-9 February 2007 IPY Data Management:How one can deploy a Virtual Observatory in Cyberspace? Vladimir Papitashvili Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences University of Michigan

14. Dear Bernd, An input from China to your presentation: Chinese Geophysical Society has formed a group for Chinese participation in eGY, somehow like a national committee. Recently Prof. Chen Yong, vice president of CGS, gave a talk to the society at its 60th anniversary, introducing to eGY. Chinese geophysicists link the activities of eGY and IGY+50 to education and publicity. Acordingly a series activities have been planned, trying to enhance the public understanding of geophysics. Have fun, Zhongliang Wu

15. Greetings from Chiang Rai, Thailand. As a member of the eGY Africa Region group, I have recently presented a keynote address here in Thailand on Remote Sensing for Biogenic Disaster Management, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso at the GEOSS Workshop on Public Health Applications of Space-Based Technology, at the UNIDO Center of Excellence for Environmental Management in Owerri, Nigeria, subsequent seminars in Lesotho and Swaziland and will serve as keynote speaker at the GIS Day event at Indiana University, Bloomington. I look foward to serving eGY and its Africa group with enthusiasm. -Gilbert Rochon. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana USA. Director, Purdue Terrestrial Observatory

16. Dear Bernd, • Some points you could make are • IUGG has proposed that a Union Commission be established to deal with some eGY-related issues and functions after December 2008. • CODATA has approved the formation of a Working Group "eGY Earth and Space Science Interoperability". Alexei Gvishiani is the chair. • Our collection of showcase demonstrations is growing and becoming increasingly effective for demonstrating modern capabilities for providing access to data and services. What can WGISS contribute? • e-Africa: we are proceeding with a plan to survey present cyber-infrastructures for science in Africa, with a view to applying pressure through the Inernational Scientific community for improvements. (The reason is that modern ICT systems provide marvellous opportunities for engagement by African scientists, but poor internet access poses a big limitation.) • Is WGISS interested in participating in the Earth & Space Science Informatics (Geoinformatics?) Summit we are organising in Rome 13-14th March 2008? (draft plan attached). • Have fun, Charlie