The IASOA web and data portal have been recognized as a key and evolving deliverable of the IASOA planning process. The "Data-at-a-Glance" portal, in particular, adds value above isolated efforts through acting as a single cross-site gateway to all shared IASOA data. There are currently over 180 links of this type in the "Data-at-a-Glance" portal of the website, with varying degrees of functionality, and limited standard metadata. Potentially transformative insights into long-term and pan-Arctic atmospheric trends reside in this archive waiting to be harvested. In response to the high priority placed on the IASOA web and data portal by the steering committee, and in recognition of the value of interoperable metadata standards for broader data harvesting and use, the PI will conduct a pilot project to enhance the IASOA data portal through application of shared ontologies, coordination with other Arctic atmospheric data archives, standardization of metadata, and outreach to user communities.
The core purpose of this work was to advance international data sharing and scientific collaboration among the International Arctic System for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA) member observatories. This consortium of ten, independently-funded, long-term Arctic observatories located around the Arctic constitutes a tremendous collaborative potential for understanding both how and why the Arctic is changing. Results to date include: 1) Strategic Planning: A starting point for this work was to create a formal governance structure for the IASOA coordination. The PI initiated a scientific steering committee, including two early career participants, who collectively articulated a mission statement: The mission of IASOA is to advance cross-site research objectives from independent pan-Arctic atmospheric observatories through (1) strategically developing comprehensive observational capacity, (2) facilitating data access and usability through a single gateway, and (3) mobilizing contributions to synergistic science and socially-relevant services derived from IASOA assets and expertise. 2) Data Portal Redesign: The core activity of this proposal was to improve the functionality of IASOA website (Figure 1, http://iasoa.org), with a focus on the the legacy IASOA data access portal (figure 2). The guiding design principles were to leverage as many existing efforts as possible and to listen closely to the IASOA community. Three issues were addressed: To organize observations in the portal by a consistent, hierarchal structure based on geophysical parameters. To identify a common metadata standard for documenting IASOA observations. The new metadata schema for the IASOA data portal is based on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) implementation of the International Standards Organization (ISO) 19115-2 metadata standard (ISO, 2003). To listen to IASOA’s community of user and providers about what motivated them and discouraged them about other data access portals. IASOA users wanted expedited access to original datasets and clear documentation about what the data files contained. IASOA data providers (investigators and archives) wanted credit for their efforts in collecting and archiving the data. A search results "card" was designed that highlighted all these components (Figure 3). 3) Data Portal Population and Maintenance: The PI selected a design and implementation approach that would allow IASOA to harvest as much existing metadata as possible (~80%); the team created a metadata authoring tool for any datasets without existing metadata (~20%). Many WMO programs (e.g. Global Atmosphere Watch) and national archives (e.g. Finland) already serve ISO-compliant metadata through web accessible services. The PI worked closely with other IASOA partners (e.g. U.S. Department of Energy) to support them through the process of developing and exporting their existing metadata standard into this international format. This approach yielded rapid results (Table 1): more than 800 datasets were ingested or authored over the course of three months. It is anticipated that ever-expanding partnerships will raise this number to more than 1200 datasets. IASOA’s approach leverages the existing capacity of archives and lets them do what they do best. Table 1. Example of contribution status from archives with IASOA datasets Archive Total datasets Total ingested or authored in IASOA WMO – Global Atmosphere Watch 443 443 U.S. National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, Global Monitoring Division 182 182 U.S. Department of Energy 146 146 U.S. National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, Physical Science Division (Includes all Tiksi datasets) 34 34 Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) 21 21 Canadian Arctic Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change (CANDAC) 40 14* Advanced Cooperative Arctic Data and Information Service (ACADIS) 92 10** WMO – Global Cryosphere Watch Investigating - Finnish Meteorological Institute Investigating - Svalbard Integrated Observing System Investigating - *Successful pilot ingest, total ingest planned for late 2014; **ICECAPS datasets, further ingest planned for 2014. 4) Science Planning: New knowledge generated from pan Arctic synthesis science is the ultimate realization of IASOA’s mission. In 2013, the PI facilitated the development of a science working group structure, and secured outside funding for a workshop to launch the first two groups (Net Radiation and Black Carbon). The accomplishments-to-date of these groups includes: Facilitating the installation of a new radiation suite at Summit station; Spearheading a consistent Level 0 processing routine for IASOA black carbon datasets and submission of datasets to the World Data Center for Aerosols; Authoring two chapter contributions to the 2013 Arctic Report Card, a widely-read, peer reviewed, annual science publication (Sharma et al., 2013; Key et al., 2013). On-going focus on multi-author, peer-reviewed synthesis of foundational climatologies for a) aerosol properties, b) radiation properties. 5) Synergistic Activities & Outreach: The PI initiated "IASOA Observations", a periodic newsletter for the broader IASOA community to disseminate information about new data, upcoming campaign work, and to promote synthesis science themes. The PI also led an Association of Polar Early Career Scientist (APECS) Webinar on data sharing practices in December of 2013. The PI serves on WMO's Global Cryosphere Watch portal team to share successes of the IASOA model with this new organization.
