A Data and Information System for Arctic Research

TitleA Data and Information System for Arctic Research
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2010
AuthorsTanner, S, Graves, S, Hardin, D
Conference NameAmerican Geophysical Union
Date Published12/2010
AbstractThe Information Systems and Technology Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville is designing an Information System which will be employed to investigate the environmental impact on the Arctic. This system will produce decision support products of value to Arctic researchers, governmental decision makers, native populations, and industry. By combining data resources from nations whose territorial extent includes the Arctic, new data resources, research and information will be produced that will potentially enable a better understanding of Sea Ice flows, sea ice dynamics and impacts to permafrost. The system has great potential for producing new results because it will incorporate data resources from civilian, military and commercial entities from all the participating Arctic nations. This means that data previously deemed proprietary or sensitive will now be shared among researchers and decision makers with all results made publically available. The ability to access data from multiple distributed sources and to combine the disparate data sets to generate new decision support products will be supplied through the system infrastructure – a distributed set of computational hardware configured with software tools and applications. The presentation will describe an architecture composed of distributed nodes with a suite of models and analysis software. The primary node comprises the major data storage and computational engines. Satellite nodes composed of a few powerful desktop workstations with analysis software will potentially be hosted in some Arctic nations. Access nodes which host the User interface will be widely available via standard internet connectivity.