GCW-CNT-5/Doc.2.1, p. 0

WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION
______
GLOBAL CRYOSPHERE WATCH (GCW)
Steering Group
Forth Session
Cambridge, UK
16-19 January, 2017 / GCW-SG-4/Doc.2.3(1)
______
Date: 04.01.2017
AGENDA ITEM: 2.3
Original: ENGLISH

Report of Information and Services WG

(Submitted by the WG Chair)

SUMMARY AND PURPOSE OF DOCUMENT
The document provides a summary of the progress, challenges, gaps and plans regarding the activities of the Information and Services WG
The GCW-SG is invited to review the attached report that was prepared by the WG Chair, in cooperation with the team leads.

GCW-SG-4/Doc.2.3(1), p. 6

Document Changes:

Original document / RN / 04.01.2017
Updates / Øystein Godøy; J Key / 08.01.2017
Added reference from GSG-3 report, for item 32/4.1 from the Data Portal section of the GSG-3 report, for reference;
Generate V2 / RN / 09.01.2017


Actions from past meetings

GCW Portal
32 / 4.1 / The GSG requested Sue Barrell (CBS), D/OBS and Øystein Godøy (on behalf of GCW) to articulate the common issues and to identify follow-on actions for WMO.
See reference below / S. Barrell
D/OBS
Ø. Godøy
33 / 4.1 / The Chair of the Portal Team, on behalf of GCW, was requested to engage WIS and WIGOS on vocabulary, metadata standards, data exchange and related matters to ensure a common approach is implemented. / Chair of the Portal Team / Done for WIGOS
GCW Website
34 / 5.1 / The GSG asked that all members to identify and seek both human and financial resources to conduct specific tasks such as data processing and development of products for the website. / All members
35 / 5.1 / The GSG recognized the importance of communicating the existence of the website to the broader community. The GSG Chair requested that the Secretariat should contact PRs asking them to link the GCW website to their national website, if possible. / Secretariat
36 / 5.1 / The Outreach Team was asked to contact the chair of APECS to discuss broadening GCW’s communication within their community. / Outreach Team
37 / 5.1 / The GSG approved the activation of the Terminology Team, led by Gino Casassa, and the proposed work plan. / Gino Casassa and Secretariat / Done, 7 April 2016
38 / 5.1 / The Secretariat, on behalf of the Terminology Team, was requested to discuss the development of the glossary with the WMO department responsible for terminology so that GCW efforts can be properly aligned with METEOTERM and the ultimate need for high quality translation. / Secretariat
39 / 5.2 / The Secretariat, in consultation with the Website and Outreach Team, was asked to help with making the website more mobile friendly and to discuss with WMO Communications Department on enhanced communications for GCW to help broaden its reach, including the use of social media. / Secretariat
Website and Outreach Team

4.1 Status of the development of GCW Portal, including interoperability with CryoNet sites: The Chair of the Portal Team presented a very useful update (gcw-201512-dmstatusjoint.pdf) of the status and plans for the GCW Portal Data Catalogue and the issues which need to be addressed by the Team, as well as Document 4.1 submitted prior to the meeting. An updated diagram of portal interconnections was provided. It was noted that this is not all automatic as there is human interface to catch errors. The GSG was reminded that the Portal is not currently hosting data, although this option could be investigated, recognizing that long term cost is an issue. Several issues were raised for discussion, including the filtering of harvested metadata and use of controlled vocabularies, brokering and cleaning/validation of harvested metadata for WIS compliance, consistency of controlled vocabularies, duplication of metadata, and interaction with WIGOS/WIS/GTS. There was discussion about the controlled vocabularies used both within WMO (WIS, WIGOS, Climate services, etc.) and with the broader scientific community (e.g. ICSU). For example, ICSU is good at archiving while WMO is good at operational exchange. With WMO now concerned about end-to-end data management, there has to be agreement on vocabularies; these may need to be developed, e.g. by the GCW terminology team for cryospheric purposes. It was noted that codes.wmo.int is not yet sufficiently populated. WIS and WIGOS have to be on the same page. With respect to data exchange, it could be more efficient for GCW to use the internet for real-time exchange of some datasets rather than the GTS due to the limited bandwidth on the GTS and sometimes limits on the user community side. All these issues need to be discussed within WMO, especially with WIS and WIGOS. Sue Barrell emphasized that WMO needs to engage partners to ensure all parties’ interests are properly aligned and asked how WIGOS could help. She noted that it would be beneficial to have the Portal Chair engaged in ICG-WIGOS.


Terminology Team: progress

A contract was issued to Clement Hutin, a former WMO intern, to add new terms from additional sources identified by Gino Casassa. The contract was issued in December 2016, to be completed in March 2017.

Prepare for integration in the GCW Glossary, the relevant terms contained in the following resources:

Priority 1:

1. Photoglossaryof glaciological terms

http://www.swisseduc.ch/glaciers/glossary/

2. Cryospheric terms from the AMSglossaryof meteorology (http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Main_Page).

3. IllustratedGlossaryof Snow and Ice. 1973. Terence E. Roberts, Brian
Birley, Swithinbank, Charles, Armstrong. Scott Polar Research Institute.
http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Glossary-Snow-Terence-Armstrong/dp/0901021016

4. PhysicalGeography.net educational web portal, undated,Glossaryof Terms. http://www.physicalgeography.net/physgeoglos/g.html

5. Rau, F., F. Mauz, S. Vogt, S.J. Singh Khalsa and B. Raup, 2005, Illustrated GLIMS Glacier Classification Manual: Glacier Classification Guidance for the GLIMS Inventory. Version 1. GLIMS Regional Center “Antarctic Peninsula”, Institut für Physische Geographie, Albert Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg. 36p. https://www.glims.org/MapsAndDocs/assets/GLIMS_Glacier-Classification-Manual_V1_2005-02-10.pdf

6. Raup, B.H., and Khalsa, J.S. (2010) GLIMS analysis tutorial, 15 pp. Available athttp://www.glims.org/MapsAndDocs/assets/GLIMS_Analysis_Tutorial_a4.pdf

Priority 2:

7. Elsevier’s Dictionary of Glaciology (Kotlyakov & Smolyarova, 2006). https://www.elsevier.com/books/elseviers-dictionary-of-geography/kotlyakov/978-0-444-51042-6

8. The Dictionary of Physical Geography, 4th Edition
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-111878233X.html

Progress reported by Hutin as of Jan 4, 2017:

·  All relevant terms from the Swisseduc - Photo glossary of glaciological termshave been incorporated, which is an addition of 160 terms.

·  148 terms from the Illustrated Glossary of Snow and Ice (1973),have been digitised and added.

·  currently working on the American Meteorological Society, Glossary of Meteorology, to be finished by mid/late January.

website and outreach Team: progress

No major structural or content changes have been made to the GCW website (globalcryospherewatch.org) since the last Steering Group meeting (December 2015). Changes include:

·  The station/site questionnaire and database have been modified significantly.

·  There have been many minor improvements to the dynamic pages that display station/site information.

·  2015 assessments have been added for all cryosphere components and the atmosphere.

·  New sea ice trackers from JAXA and NOAA/CIMSS have been added, including ice extent, ice thickness, surface temperature, and surface albedo. Cryosat and SMOS ice thickness plots (not trackers) have been added. Regional sea ice products for Alaska have been added.

·  CryoNet recommended variables lists have been added.

All GCW handouts (http://globalcryospherewatch.org/outreach/materials.html) have been updated.

The GSG is invited to discuss the role of the GCW website as an authoritative and timely source of information for the public and media, particularly when interesting and extreme events occur in the cryosphere. At present, the media looks to a small number of data centers, agencies, and organizations such as the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), NASA, and the British Antarctic Survey (to name a few) for comments and information on significant events in the Arctic and Antarctic. If GCW is to serve in this capacity, then better access to experts and more robust contributions from them will be needed.

Portal Team: progress

Development of a new portal frontend and supporting backend services is still ongoing. This implies a change in the metadata structure used. The new technical solution is more flexible than the old. Basically a standard Content Management System (Drupal 7) is used as the frontend. The data management functionality is integrated as web services. The new solution was deployed in some test instances autumn 2016, but is still not production ready.

The effort above has taken energy from the dialogue with CryoNet stations. However, in 2016, full metadata integration of SLF in Davos has been achieved. Integration at the the data level is under discussion. The problems with semantic transformation of CCIN vocabularies have also been fixed. Full implementation of CCIN have suffered under the development of the new technical solution. Late 2016, testing of metadata harvest with Environment Canada (ECCC) Data Management System (DMS) has started, but is yet not complete.

In order to facilitate integration with WIGOS, the development of the WIGOS Metadata Standard (WMDS) and the XML representation of this has been followed closely. Starting late 2016, testing of the WMDS on GCW station inventories have started. During the TT-WMD meetings, modifications to the WMDS has been made to facilitate the needs of GCW (e.g. by combining stations to sites or small networks).

The GSG is invited to discuss how to manage the process of further development of the WMDS vocabularies (separate document provided) in order to fulfill the requirements of GCW.