Editing FedSearchAbstract2009

'''Will be submitted Sept. 2'''
To contribute, modify the title or abstract, then add your key info below the abstract by 3:00 EDT Sept. 2.
=Federated Space-Time Query for Earth Science Data Using OpenSearch Conventions=
The past decade has seen a burgeoning of remote sensing and Earth science data providers, as evidenced in the growth of the Earth Science Information Partner (ESIP) federation.
At the same time, the need to combine diverse data sets to enable understanding of the Earth as a system has also grown.
While the expansion of data providers is in general a boon to such studies, the diversity presents a challenge to finding useful data for a given study.
Locating all the data files with aerosol information for a particular volcanic eruption, for example,
may involve learning and using several different search tools to execute the requisite space-time queries.
To address this issue, the ESIP federation is developing a federated space-time query framework, based on the OpenSearch convention (www.opensearch.org), with Geo and Time extensions.
In this framework, data providers publish OpenSearch Description Documents that describe in a machine-readable form how to execute queries against the provider. The novelty of OpenSearch is that the space-time query interface becomes both machine callable and easy enough to integrate into the web browser's search box.
This flexibility, together with a simple REST (HTTP-get) interface, should allow a variety of data providers to participate in the federated search framework, from large institutional data centers to individual scientists. The simple interface enables trivial querying of multiple data sources and participation in recursive-like federated searches--all using the same common OpenSearch interface.
This simplicity also makes the construction of clients easy, as does existing OpenSearch client libraries in a variety of languages.  Moreover, a number of clients and aggregation services already exist and OpenSearch is already supported by a number of web browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer.

=Authors=
To participate, copy the set of bullets at the end and paste them beneath the last author listed.  All fields are required except Department.
==Author==
* '''Name:''' Christopher Lynnes
* '''Email:''' Chris.Lynnes@nasa.gov
* '''Institution:'''  NASA/GSFC
* '''Department:''' 
* '''City:'''  Greenbelt
* '''State:''' Maryland
==Author ==
* '''Name:''' Bruce Beaumont
* '''Email:''' beaumont@itsc.uah.edu
* '''Institution:'''  University of Alabama in Huntsville
* '''Department:''' Information Technology and Systems Center
* '''City:'''  Huntsville
* '''State:''' Alabama
==Author==
* '''Name:''' Ruth Duerr
* '''Email:''' rduerr@nsidc.org
* '''Institution:'''  University of Colorado at Boulder
* '''Department:''' National Snow and Ice Data Center
* '''City:''' Boulder
* '''State:''' Colorado
==Author==
* '''Name:''' Hook Hua
* '''Email:''' hook.hua at jpl.nasa.gov
* '''Institution:''' Jet Propulsion Laboratory / Caltech
* '''Department:''' Instrument Software and Science Data Systems
* '''City:'''  Pasadena
* '''State:''' CA