NSIDC DAAC Hightlights User Working Group Meeting

Boulder, CO

3-4 September 2014

NSIDC Distributed Active Archive Center

New DAAC Manager

• After 25+ years, Ron Weaver retired from

the DAAC Manager position on July 1 He will remain on at NSIDC 50% time

• On Sept 16, Dr. Brian Johnson will become the new

DAAC manager 25 years of experience working with managers, scientists, and engineers to

develop advanced remote sensing technologies and data processing

techniques for weather, climate, and environmental research applications

Has experience in both research and industry

o Algorithm Manager – JPSS/Raytheon, Deputy Directory - Ball Aerospace, Project

Scientist - NCAR, Sr. Staff Scientist - NEON

PhD in Atmosphere and Space Sciences, Masters in Electrical Engineering

DAAC Contract

• Period of Performance: June 1, 2013 – May 31,

2018

• Awarded July 31, 2013

1 year with 4 one year options – different than

past contracts

• Currently in option year 1

Easy transition into the first option year

DAAC Activities

FY2014 FTE Allocations

Mission Support

• Aqua/AMSR-E

http://nsidc.org/data/amsre

• Aqua & Terra/MODIS http://nsidc.org/data/modis

• Aquarius (Soil Moisture)

http://aquarius.nasa.gov/

• ICESat/GLAS http://nsidc.org/data/icesat

• ICESat-2 http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/icesat2/

• Operation IceBridge (OIB) http://nsidc.org/data/icebridge/

• Passive Microwave (SMMR, SSM/I, SSMIS) http://nsidc.org/data/polar_stereo

http://nsidc.org/data/ease

• MEaSUREs 2006 & 2012 http://nsidc.org/data/measures

• Nimbus 1, 2, 3 (1960s) http://nsidc.org/data/nimbus/

• SMAP http://smap.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/

New in FY2014

• Aquarius (Polar-gridded data)

http://aquarius.nasa.gov/

• Nimbus 4 http://nsidc.org/data/nimbus/

• Operation IceBridge (OIB) – ARISE http://nsidc.org/data/icebridge/

Mission Support

• AMSR-E

Sea Ice reprocessing completed with an updated

Southern hemisphere land mask

• Aquarius

Published L2 & L3 Soil Moisture products (R.

Bindlish, T. Jackson)

Published L3 Polar-gridded products (L. Brucker)

o First non-OIB data provider to use MetGen

• ICESat/GLAS

HDF5 formatted data and subsetter are available

Mission Support

• ICESat-2

Evaluating technologies for large data volumes

(e.g. GridFTP, subsetting)

• MEaSUREs

Produce imagery from J. Kimball’s F/T product for

NASA’s WorldView/GIBS

Mission Support

• Nimbus

Published L1 and L3 visible & infrared imagery

and ice edge from Nimbus 1, 2, & 3

o Utilized MetGen

Additional funds to

produce Nimbus 4

products

50th Anniversary of

Nimbus 1

Mission Support

• Operation IceBridge

Tremendous strides with data providers using

MetGen

Co-managing Arctic Radiation-IceBridge Sea & Ice

Experiment (ARISE) campaign data with LaRC

• Passive Microwave

TB production code overhaul to use improved

input data stream across multiple satellites and to

capture production-level provenance

Mission Support

• SMAP

Launch moved from Nov 5 to Jan 8

Valuable insights from supporting Applications

Working Group, Early Adopters, and Cal/Val

partners

Data system has been fully vetted for ingest &

distribution

o Raytheon has initiated

development of subsetting

services

o SMAP SDS producing

WorldView/GIBS imagery

Engineering & Development

• NSIDC Data Search

Provides users with information and features to

make it easier to identify and differentiate data

sets with the best fit for their use

Guided by usability testing

Collaboration between NASA NSIDC DAAC

and NSF ACADIS

http://nsidc.org/data/search/

Engineering & Development

• Operation IceBridge Portal

Current interface’s flightline-based workflow has

been popular

To broaden the audience, redesigning the

interface to present a data-driven workflow

http://nsidc.org/icebridge/portal/

Engineering & Development

• Satellite Observations of Change (SOAC)

Interactive maps of the Arctic based on NASA

satellite and related data.

Site allows users to explore how conditions in the

Arctic have changed over

Funded by T. Wagner

http://nsidc.org/soac

Infrastructure

• Expanded usage of virtualization

Virtualized the GLAS Binary subsetter

Created virtual appliances for custom software

applications

• Migrated data storage from a Storage Area

Network (SAN) to a Network Attached System

(NAS)

Improved performance, reliability, & scaleability

Wikipedia: Virtualization refers to the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual)

version of something, including but not limited to a virtual computer hardware

platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or computer network resources.

User Services

• Science Communications

Implemented Drupal for Web content

management

Streamlined Web site menu and information

architecture leveraging the new Data Search