Reading e-Science Centre

Technical DirectorJon BlowerESSC

DirectorRachel HarrisonCS

DirectorKeith HainesESSC

Associated Personnel

ExternalCollaborations

e-Science for a digitised environmentEnvironmental Science ApplicationsAnalysis, modelling and assimilation of climate and real-time data

Reading University’sEnvironmental SystemsScience Centre ESSC

Meteorology Dept.Centre Global Atm. ModellingData Assimilation Res. CentreMet Office UnitsPlant Sciences Dept.

Existing projects

• GODIVA (NERC pilot project)– Grid for oceanographers to enable distributed analysis

and visualisation of ocean data

GODIVA Web Portal (http://www.nerc-essc.ac.uk/godiva)

• Allows users to interactively select data for download using a GUI

• Users can create movies on the fly

• cf. Live Access Server

• Useful as browse tool

Existing projects

• GODIVA (NERC pilot project)– Grid for oceanographers to enable distributed analysis and

visualisation of ocean data

• GADS (Grid Access Data Service)– Web Service for providing access to data (~1 TB at ESSC alone)

– Will be part of workflows (e.g. for use in GODIVA)• Workflows are groups of Web Services which work together to form

a distributed application

Example workflow

• First Web Service (GADS) extracts data from a server

• Second Web Service finds the depth of an isotherm in the dataset

(from myGrid project)

INPUTS

OUTPUT

Existing projects

• GODIVA (NERC pilot project)– Grid for oceanographers to enable distributed analysis and

visualisation of ocean data

• GADS (Grid Access Data Service)– Web Service for providing access to data

– Will be part of workflows (for use in GODIVA)

• Provision of live Met Office data to community– Thousands of users, hundreds of institutions, tens of countries

– Esp. for MERSEA (EU model intercomparison project)

– Also in future to BMT for oil spill / search and rescue systems

Real-time data access

• Met Office FOAM data

• Can easily create subsets of data

Intercomparison of model data

Compare results of different ocean models

e.g. EU MERSEA project

Existing projects (contd.)

• TRACK software for identifying weather systems– Computationally intensive but parallel, best run on a

distributed system

– Would like to do this on many different data sets (e.g. ECMWF)

Future projects

• Create more Web Services for benefit of community– Collate Web Services written by other people (create UDDI registry)

• Use satellite / in situ data in addition to model data

• SEEDA– Provision of Met Office data to BMT

SEEDA project

• Create prototype of system in which real-time Met Office data are used to predict path of oil spills

This is the OSIS software, which currently uses tidal data only: would be improved with real-time Met Office forecasts of ocean currents

Future projects

• Create more Web Services for benefit of community– Collate Web Services written by other people

• Use satellite / in situ data in addition to model data• SEEDA

– Provision of Met Office data to BMT

• EurOPA– European portal for real-time data for marine hazard analysis (EU)

• POPPIE– Environment Agency / Met Office pollution tracking software– Re-engineer software to improve architecture: use Web Services

• Bristol University: simulations of fragmentation in volcanic rocks– Monte Carlo simulations of “virtual” rocks

Technical expertise

• Strong focus on Web Services– Data access– Data analysis/processing– Data visualisation

• Creating distributed applications using workflow engines to orchestrate Web Services– Also web portals (cf. Live Access Server) – ESP community

• Future migration to Grid Services: would like help with OGSA!

• Question: How to transfer large data sets between Web Services?

• Use of Condor pool at ESSC

Summary

• ReSC is engaging with environmental scientists in many disciplines and sectors– Focus on atmosphere/ocean science

– Working with universities, govt agencies and commercial sector

– Would like to draw on experience of other e-scientists

• ReSC complements, but is distinct from, NIEeS