ATMOSPHERIC DATA ACCESS FOR THE GEOSPATIAL USER COMMUNITY (ADAGUC) Nikée E. Groot a* , John van de Vegte b , Wim-Jan Som de Cerff b , Gijsbertus H. J. van den Oord b , Raymond Sluiter b , Ian A. van der Neut b , Maarten Plieger b , Richard M. van Hees c , Richard A.M. de Jeu d , Michael E. Schaepman a , Marc R. Hoogerwerf a , Ben Domenico e , Stefano Nativi f , Olga V. Wilhelmi g a Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR), Costerweg 50, 6701 BH, Wageningen, the Netherlands b Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), Wilhelminalaan 10, 3732 GK, De Bilt, The Netherlands c Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON), Sorbonnelaan 2, 3584 CA, Utrecht, the Netherlands d Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Free University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands e UNIDATA, UCAR Foothills Lab 4, 3300 Mitchell Lane, Boulder, CO 80301 USA f Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis (IMAA), C.da S. Loja - Zona Industriale, I-85050 Tito Scalo (PZ), Italy g The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), 3450 Mitchell Lane, Boulder, CO 80301, USA KEY WORDS: ADAGUC, GIS, Atmospheric and Meteorological Datasets, OGC, WMS, WFS, WCS, RGI ABSTRACT: Historically the atmospheric and meteorological communities are separate worlds, with their own data formats and tools for data handling, which makes sharing of these data with the geospatial communities difficult and cumbersome. These information sources are becoming of increasing interest outside of these communities at present, because of the continuously improving spatial and temporal resolution of e.g. model and satellite data and the interest in historical datasets. New user communities that use geographically based datasets in a cross-domain manner are emerging. This development is supported by the progress made in Geographical Information System (GIS) software. The current GIS software is not yet ready for the wealth of atmospheric data, although the faint outlines of new generation software are already visible: support of HDF, NetCDF and an increased understanding of temporal issues are only a few of the hints. To aid in this trend, the ADAGUC project aims to reduce the need for scientists to invent their own converter tools. Selected space borne atmospheric datasets will be made accessible for GIS software. Both the geospatial and the atmospheric user communities are involved intensively in the project, to obtain a high fitness for use. The deliverables of this project are: Open Source conversion tools, selected atmospheric datasets in a GIS-friendly format and a web service to demonstrate the usability of the above to the geospatial and atmospheric community. Dissemination of the results is pursued through publications, workshops and (inter)national cooperation. * nikee.groot@wur.nl; phone +31 317 481552; fax: +31 317 419000; http://adaguc.knmi.nl 1. INTRODUCTION The ADAGUC project (Atmospheric Data Access for the Geospatial User Community; see http://adaguc.knmi.nl) aims at reducing the need for users to invent their own converter and mapping tools. Selected space borne atmospheric datasets will be made accessible by GIS to allow easy data comparison, resampling, selection, manipulation and visualization. Representatives of the (inter)national user communities are strongly involved in the project to guarantee proper accommodation of the user requirements. Besides easy access to datasets for non-atmospheric and -meteorological communities, the international operational meteorology and meteorological research can profit from the introduction of GIS technology (see COST 719; http://www.knmi.nl/samenw/ cost719). ADAGUC will focus on interoperability and harmonization of data resources such that a ‘GIS -enabled’ user can work with these datasets. ADAGUC serves as a pilot for applying GIS-technology in meteorological and climate datasets. The ADAGUC project’s expected results will be: Open Source conversion tools for conversion of selected atmospheric datasets into an Open Standard GIS format, published atmospheric datasets in GIS format and a web service to demonstrate the usability of the above to the geospatial and atmospheric communities. Dissemination of the results is pursued through publications, workshops and international cooperation. The challenge is to create an environment that has the potential to become the next generation operational solution, dealing with international frameworks, standards, and cross domain end- users. In the ADAGUC project the ESA’s PSS-05 Lite standard for software development is used. It recognizes the following phases: 1) use case definition, 2) user requirements definition, 3) detailed design, 4) implementation, 5) integration and tests. During phase 1 and 2 the user communities were consulted. With these users’ results, the spatial data infrastructure, based on OGC compliant web services, is currently being developed, to provide the atmospheric datasets. These web services include Web Mapping Services (WMS) for online visualization, Web Feature Services (WFS) for downloading vector data and Web Coverage Services (WCS) for downloading raster data. The ADAGUC project will be finished at the end of 2008 and the results will be presented in the final workshop on December 4 th and 5 th at the VU University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 41