Why Archive Environmental Data?

1. Why Archive Environmental Data? Graham Parton, Ben Seears Centre for Environmental Data Archival, STFC, Harwell Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK OX11 OQX graham.parton@stfc.ac.uk • Introduction • With increasing volumes of data being generated by the environmental sciences correct archival of these data becomes increasingly important. Apart from protection against loss, degradation and keeping data accessible for re-use by others, placing data into dedicated archives brings a whole host of additional benefits. • These benefits include: • Re-usability of expensively produced and uniquely sourced data - bringing additional value to the data • Data become discoverable and citable • Archived data permits proper scrutiny of scientific results • Value-added services can be built upon the data • Making Data Accessible • NERC’s dedicated data centres cover most environmental domains e.g. the British Atmospheric and NERC Earth Observation Data Centres (BADC and NEODC) hosted by CEDA. • BADC and NEODC provide online access to over 1 Petabyte of data in hundreds of datasets • NERC’s Data Discovery Service (DDS) • The DDS helps users discover thousands of datasets archived in its dedicated data centres. • Driven by internationally recognised metadata standards. • Properly archived and related data are easily discovered through simple text, geographical and temporal searches. • Once discovered, users can access data access quickly and easily through the data centres by following links Data Citations Key to scientific advancement is the traceability of the underlying results. With large dataset no longer being published within scientific papers linking the papers to the related data becomes increasingly difficult. However, archiving data in recognised longer term and dedicated repositories allows data to be citable. Data citations can also be assigned DOIs, and become recognised citations for the data creators. • Data Visualisation Services: • Well structured archived data can be placed behind powerful online visualisation services such as the International Space Innovation Centre’s (ISIC) visualisation suite: see isicvis.badc.rl.ac.uk/viewdata/ • Different complex data sets can be easily combined. E.g. simultaneous land & sea temperature data, allowing new synergies to be quickly identified. • Animations can increase understanding, while resulting graphics can be exported for use in presentations and on large displays such as the ISIC videowall shown below. • What Can CEDA Provide? • The Centre for Environmental Data Archival has internationally recognised expertise in all aspects of data management and exploitation: • Working in the vanguard of emerging web technologies, permitting greater data exploitation. • Shaping metadata and data standards through involvement with the CF, ISO and INSPIRE communities. • Experience with international petabytesize data archiving projects including CMIP5. • Continued close contact with the research community.