Global Change Information System (GCIS)

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

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

3. U.S. Global Change Research Program The Program: • Coordinates Federal research to better understand and 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

4. Staff (some of many contributors) U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), National Coordination Office (NCO): Robert Wolfe1, Curt Tilmes1, Steve Aulenbach2, Brian Duggan2, Justin Goldstein2, Amanda McQueen2, Julie Morris2, Glynis Lough2 National Climate Assessment (NCA) Technical Support Unit (TSU): David Easterling3, Paula Hennon4, Angel Li4, April Sides6, Mark Phillips5, Sarah Champion4, Andrew Buddenberg4, Devin Thomas6 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 LeNguyen • 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.

5. 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 and 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.

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

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.

8. 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.

9. 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

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

11. Data and The National Climate AssessmentThe 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

12. Data and National Climate AssessmentThe 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

13. globalchange.gov - v2.0

14. National Climate Assessment 2014

15. GCIS Structured Data Server

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

17. Dataset metadata from a figure

18. Dataset metadata from a image in a figure

19. 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.

20. 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”

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

22. GCIS Database/API • RESTful API at data.globalchange.gov • URLs correspond to ontology URIs • Primary storage : RDBMS (PostgreSQL) • 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

23. GCIS Ontology (version 1.2) (a) Classes and properties representing a brief structure of the NCA3

24. (b) Classes and properties relevant to the findings of the NCA3 and each chapter in it 24

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

26. 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

27. 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:hasImage ?img . ?imgprov:wasDerivedFrom ?dataset } limit 10 27

28. Two Parallel Paths 1. Third National Climate Assessment (NCA3) Traceable Sources Traceable Data Traceable Processes Traceable Tools • References • Image sources • Data sources • Link to datasets • Complete metadata • Description of methods • Access to process info & review • Access to computer code • Description of systems and platforms 2 . GCIS

29. Two Parallel Paths 1. NCA3 release Traceable Sources Traceable Data Traceable Processes Traceable Tools • References • Image sources • Data sources • Link to datasets • Complete metadata • Description of methods • Access to process info & review • Access to computer code • Description of systems and platforms 2 . Populate GCIS

30. Data and GCISThe Future globalchange.gov website Structured Data Server

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

32. Questions and Comments For more informationvisit http://www.globalchange.gov and http://data.globlchange.gov

33. Backup

34. 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

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

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

37. 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

38. Global Change Keywords (GCMD) Sample finding: GCMD v8.0 Certain types of extreme weather events have become more frequent and intense, including heat waves, floods, and droughtsin 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. • ATMOSPHERIC/OCEAN INDICATORS > EXTREME WEATHER • EXTREME WEATHER > EXTREME PRECIPITATION • 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