RSIG

From Federation of Earth Science Information Partners

<Back to Data Summit Workspace <All Data Systems
Edit with Form or Submit Word Doc

General

Contact

Data System Name: Remote Sensing Information Gateway (RSIG)
Data System URL: http://portal.epa.gov
Contact Person: Heidi Paulsen
Contact e-mail: Paulsen.Heidi@epamail.epa.gov

Background

About the Data System (Purposes, Audience):

The RSIG applet allows users to interactively specify, visualize and save a subset of meteorological and air-quality data from a variety of sources including:

• NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite data
• The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model output
• National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) biomass burning data
• AIRNow and Air Quality System (AQS) ground station measurements.

Data subsets are interactively specified by user-selected variable,time-range and lon-lat box and quickly displayed together over a map and animated over time.

Images and data may be saved on the user's computer in a variety of formats, including PNG, MPEG, KMZ, ASCII, XDR, NetCDF, and HDF, for later analysis and integration with other applications.

The RSIG applet accesses a set of remote OGC-WCS web server applications also developed at EPA and installed at the remote sites that store the data. By operating at the source, these servers and associated subset programs enable fast and convenient streaming of data subsets across the network to achieve an impressive response of "about a minute per day's worth of data". (Other applications, such as EGS and AirQuest, also benefit by utilizing these powerful server programs.) See also Remote Sensing Information Gateway (RSIG)

Presentation:

warning.pngEmpty strings are not accepted.

History:

n/a

Agencies:

EPA

List of Publications, Papers, Presentations:

RSIG Brochure

Data System Scope

Data Content

---

Datasets Served:

• AIRNow ground stations hourly Ozone and PM2.5 measurements. North America, 2003-present.
  
• AQS ground stations hourly and aggregated Ozone and PM2.5 measurements. North America, 1995-present.
  
• NESDIS Biomass Burning surface point values of PM2.5, CH4, CO2, CO, N2O, NH3, NOx, SO2, TNMHC. Currently selected week events in August 2005, July 2006, October 2007.
  
• NASA MODIS-4/6/7 satellite surface-integrated data including: Aerosol Optical Depth, Cloud Optical Thickness, Ozone, Pressure, Temperature, etc. Global 2000-present.
  
• NASA CALIPSO LIDAR satellite vertical data including: backscatter, pressure, temperature, ozone density, etc. Currently selected week events in August 2005, July 2006, October 2007.
  
• EPA CMAQ gridded model data including: O3, NO2, CO, PM25, WIND, etc. Currently Eastern US, 2001, August 2004, August 2005.
  
• UVNet: Twenty-two ground stations in the US measuring Irradiance (W/m2) and UVBio "sunburn" (W/m2), 1996 through 2004-06.
  

Parameters:

See above

Spatial - Temporal Coverage:

Not Given

Applications/Potential

---

Health:

Not Given

Forecasting and Reanalysis:

Not Given

Model/Emissions Evaluation:

Not Given

Characterization, Trends, Accountability:

Not Given

Other:

Not Given

Data System IT

Primary/Official Store for Some data:

No. RSIG generally accesses data from other sources (and subsets it at the source).

Data Consolidation/integration:

Yes. RSIG visualizes data together over a map. It will also soon have the ability to regrid the data to a specified CMAQ grid to facilitate integration with other applications such as Hierarchical Bayesian/Markov Chain Monte Carlo (HB/MCMC).

Providing Data Access to users/externals:

Not Given

Data Processing:

Yes. RSIG does subsetting, reformatting, conversion, and augmenting of data to facilitate visualization and subsequent analysis with other datasets. Examples include: aggregating across multiple files covering the user-specified date/time range, subsetting to a lon-lat box, striding over dense data points for fast visualization rasterization, decoding integer data to reals, lossless compression/decompression to speed-up transfer over the network, units conversion to SI and model-common units, data reordering to match model-common conventions such as ground-up, augmentation with longitude, latitude and elevation for each data value, and projecting and aggregating into model grid cells.

Visualization/Analysis:

Yes. RSIG provides a simple and quick interactive visualization of all data overlaid together on an appropriate map. It also has other custom visualizations such as a "curtain" for LIDAR data and other user-requested visualizations are planned.

Decision Support (e.g. some integration into user business process):

Not presently. There are plans to enable RSIG to launch other applications such as HB/MCMC and visualize their results. Also, external applications such as AirQuest can utilize RSIG's WCS servers.

End-to-End Integration:

Not presently. There are plans for HB/MCMC launch and visualize.

Other DS Values:

The primary value-added strengths of RSIG are its ease of use, performance and user-driven custom features.

Data Access and/or Output Interoperability:

RSIG uses Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS) standards for specifying data subsets and a supports a variety of standard output formats (ASCII, NetCDF, KMZ, etc.) requested by users to enable data to be saved and input into other applications.

Reusable Tools and Methods:

RSIG components include an applet and set of documented WCS server applications and powerful subset and converter programs - all of which are freely available and accessible by others. This applet/server/subset method has and will be reapplied to access additional data as requested by users and prioritized.

Security Barriers and Solutions:

Access outside the EPA is being addressed by installing the WCS servers and downloadable applet on the EPA Portal (badger.epa.gov). This requires an EPA firewall modification to allow http-80 access from external computers to maple, an internal computer used for visualization.

User Feedback Approach:

Principal Investigator: Dr. Jim Szykman (757) 864-2709. Please send all questions and comments to Jim Szykman or Heidi Paulsen.

Other Architecture:

Not Given

User Provided Content