Developing Feature Types and Related Catalogues for the Marine Community - Lessons from the MOTIIVE project.

MOTIIVE (Marine Overlays on Topography for annex II Valuation and Exploitation) is a project funded as a Specific Support Action (SSA) under the European Commission Framework Programme 6 (FP6) Aeronautics and Space Programme. The project started in September 2005 and finished in October 2007. The objective of MOTIIVE was to examine the methodology and cost benefit of using non-proprietary data standards. Specifically it considered the harmonisation requirements between the INSPIRE data component ‘elevation’ (terrestrial, bathymetric and coastal) and INSPIRE marine thematic data for ‘sea regions’, ‘oceanic spatial features’ and ‘coastal zone management areas’. This was examined in context of the requirements for interoperable information systems as required to realise the objectives of GMES for ‘global services’. The work draws particular conclusions on the realisation of Feature Types (ISO 19109) and Feature Type Catalogues (ISO 19110) in this respect. More information on MOTIIVE can be found at www.motiive.net

A Framework for the Development, Design and Implementation of a Sustained Arctic Ocean Observing System

Rapid Arctic warming drives profound change in the marine environment that have significant socio-economic impacts within the Arctic and beyond, including climate and weather hazards, food security, transportation, infrastructure planning and resource extraction. These concerns drive efforts to understand and predict Arctic environmental change and motivate development of an Arctic Region Component of the Global Ocean Observing System (ARCGOOS) capable of collecting the broad, sustained observations needed to support these endeavors. This paper provides a roadmap for establishing the ARCGOOS. ARCGOOS development must be underpinned by a broadly-endorsed framework grounded in high-level policy drivers and the scientific and operational objectives that stem from them. This should be guided by a transparent, internationally accepted governance structure with recognized authority and organizational relationships with the national agencies that ultimately execute network plans. A governance model for ARCGOOS must guide selection of objectives, assess performance and fitness-to-purpose, and advocate for resources. A requirements-based framework for an ARCGOOS begins with the Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs) that underpin the system. SBAs motivate investments and define the system's science and operational objectives. Objectives can then be used to identify key observables and their scope. The domains of planning/policy, strategy, and tactics define scope ranging from decades and basins to focused observing with near real time data delivery. Patterns emerge when this analysis is integrated across an appropriate set of SBAs and science/operational objectives, identifying impactful variables and the scope of the measurements. When weighted for technological readiness and logistical feasibility, this can be used to select Essential ARCGOOS Variables, analogous to Essential Ocean Variables of the Global Ocean Observing System. The Arctic presents distinct needs and challenges, demanding novel observing strategies. Cost, traceability and ability to integrate region-specific knowledge have to be balanced, in an approach that builds on existing and new observing infrastructure. ARCGOOS should benefit from established data infrastructures following the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reuseable Principles to ensure preservation and sharing of data and derived products. Linking to the Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) process and involving Arctic stakeholders, for example through liaison with the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), can help ensure success

D7-7 InterRisk Final Scientific Report

The lack of a pan-European infrastructure for uniform access and distribution of environmental data is a severe limitation in all types of risk and crisis management. In marine and coastal areas, environmental risk and crisis situations such as oil spills and harmful algal blooms usually have a transboundary and an international dimension. Thus, users in several countries and organizations need access to the same data, including observations, derived parameters and predictions of future conditions The InterRisk project therefore developed a pilot system for interoperable GMES monitoring and forecasting services for environmental risk management in marine and coastal areas. The InterRisk pilot is comprised of an open system architecture based on noted GIS and web standards, and integrates services for several European regional seas, including Norwegian, UK and Irish, French, German and Polish, and Italian waters. These services include basic services, such as delivery of satellite data products, in situ measurements, and met-ocean model forecasts as well as metadata catalogues facilitating product discovery. These services also include complex services such as detection of oil spills in satellite radar imagery, oil drift predictions for confirmed spills, and identification of ocean areas of high chlorophyll-a concentrations. All service and system development are based on standards from W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.) and ISO (International Organization for Standardization), in line with INSPIRE (INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe) recommendations.NERSC Technical Report no. 309. Funded by the European Commission contract no. 03525

Rosetta user manual

Rosetta is a web application for converting data in ASCII CSV or Excel files to NetCDF format. The conversion is defined in a special file - a template - that defines how (and which parts of) the data file is extracted and converted to spreadsheet NetCDF. If you have several data files formatted in the same way, you can define a conversion template once and reuse it for all of these data files. Rosetta is run in a web browser without installing any plugins. The generated NetCDF file, as well as the generated template, can be downloaded to your computer. Rosetta can be accessed at https://rosetta.nersc.no/

Composing Web Presentations using Presentation Patterns *

This report proposes the concept of a presentation pattern as a mechanism to capture the key aspects of a web presentation: layout, navigation and data structure. We describe the specification of presentation patterns and outline the workflow in a system that uses these patterns to generate web presentations. This system creates online courses based on presentation patterns that we have developed. Features of such an online presentation are demonstrated. Experience from the use of the system is discussed, and new directions for future work are outlined. Our approach promotes reuse of content and presentation patterns for developing online courses

UAK 2018: Research School in Svalbard

The research school was organised by the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center under the project Useful Arctic Knowledge: partnership for research and education (UAK) funded by the INTPART programme 2018-2020 funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education. The project, which includes partners from Norway, USA and Canada, brings together leading researchers, educators and young scientists working on selected Arctic science topics. The lecture presentations and other material form the research school are available at the project website: https://uak.ucalgary.ca/svalbard-research-school/NERSC Special Report no. 105. Funded by the Research Council of Norway under contract no. 27489