Call for Abstracts
Session IN 05: Data Sources and Management for the 2007-2009
International Polar Year
American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2006 Fall Meeting
11-15 December 2006
San Francisco, California
Abstract Submission Deadlines:
Friday, 1 September 2006 (mail)
Thursday, 7 September 2006 (online)
For further information, please go to:
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm06/?content=search&show=detail&sessid=200
You are invited to submit an abstract to the following special session
at this year's American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting:
Session IN 05: Data Sources and Management for the 2007-2009
International Polar Year
Session Description:
Proliferation of global observing systems, formation of diverse and
distributed databases in physical, life, and social sciences, better
communication, and advent of the Internet and World Wide Web challenge
human abilities to effectively comprehend ever increasing volumes of
data and information about the Earth's ecology, atmosphere, oceans, and
geospace. The International Polar Year (IPY, 03/2007-02/2009) initiative
has already triggered multi-national activities focused on better
understanding ongoing climate changes and their potential effects on the
life and well-being of human society. Modern information technologies
allow us to collect and manage most IPY data via the Internet and World
Wide Web (e.g., "deploying" virtual observatories in cyberspace). This
distinguishes the forthcoming International Polar Year from its famous
predecessor, the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958) when people
deployed physical observatories in the Arctic, Antarctic, and around the
world. IPY will set new benchmarks in our understanding of the global
system of interacting geospheres and near-Earth space environment
through recording and storing new knowledge in cyberspace.
This session is a joint endeavor of the IPY Subcommittees on Data Policy
and Management and on Observations. Organizers solicit contributions
from those involved in data collection and management for IPY with a
focus on: (i) global distribution and availability (or sparsity) of IPY
data sources, (ii) their accessibility via integration into the global
IPY data cyberinfrastructure ("data fabric"), (iii) examples of
interdisciplinary data applications, and (iv) overlaps between
objectives of multiple IPY projects to enrich interoperability and
complementarity of the global data infrastructure. Building the
cyberspace-based IPY data fabric will allow better cataloguing of
existing data sources, tracking the use of published datasets (hence
providing "electronic" acknowledgements back to the data providers), and
preserving most of the IPY datasets through their natural "pulling" into
permanent data repositories or copying between discipline-specific
users. Multiple virtual observatories and distributed data management
systems can then be built on top of the interoperable IPY data fabric.
Conveners:
Vladimir O. Papitashvili
University of Michigan
E-mail: papita [at] umich.edu
Mark A. Parsons
National Snow and Ice Data Center
E-mail: parsonsm [at] nsidc.org
Craig E. Tweedie
University of Texas El Paso
E-mail: ctweedie [at] utep.edu