The JPL Physical Oceanography (PO) DAAC Users Working Group (UWG) met on the morning of February 13, 1996, at the Town and Country Hotel, venue of the Ocean Sciences Meeting near San Diego.

Members present were David Glover (chair), William Emery (co-chair), Tim Liu, and Victor Zlotnicki. Also present were Don Collins, Glen Shirtliffe (Hughes EOSDIS Core System [ECS] science liaison at JPL) and Giulieta Fargion (Hughes-ECS).

D. Glover started the meeting by inquiring on the status of FY 1996 funding. Collins explained that guidelines from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) were to plan on using the same funding we requested in the annual proposal.

On the FY 1996 priorities, D. Collins stated that the highest priority was NSCAT (T. Liu pointed out that NSCAT is on schedule; any foreseeable slips would be for only a week or two). Most software to process NSCAT is ready; a glitch was found in some latitudes, and is being pursued. A workshop to encourage users to become familiar with the HDF format is planned in the first week of June, together with the NSCAT workshop at JPL.

On TOPEX/Poseidon, D. Collins informed the UWG that Merged Geophysical Data Record (MGDR) reprocessing is on schedule. It will start with cycle 130 and proceed forward, as older cycles are reprocessed. (At this point there is still a small unresolved technical issue, the Sea State Bias coefficients, which the TOPEX/Poseidon Science Working Team must resolve before reprocessing can start). He also pointed out that PO-DAAC will be distributing the TOPEX/Poseidon Outreach CD-ROM. Michael King, EOS Senior Project Scientist, will receive whole parts of this CD to include in the EOS Outreach material. The NSCAT Project is also pursuing educational outreach activities, but with an active group of top-level California educators.

D. Collins proposed that an historical Sea Surface Temperature atlas that MIT (R. Newell) and the U.K. Meteorological Office have been publishing on paper have its next issue published on CD-ROM media, with appropriate data formats, etc., by the PO-DAAC. The UWG had no objection.

The Marshall Space Flight Center DAAC appears on the verge of being closed, and active discussions have occurred among DAAC Managers and GSFC as to a smooth transition of its datasets. D. Collins proposed to bring to PO-DAAC the SSM/I Ocean Geophysical Products and possibly, from AMSR, that part of the full data stream needed to process SeaWinds and the higher level products. W. Emery pointed out that the GSFC DAAC was also interested in handling AMSR.

The ERS-1 altimeter reprocessing activity is also going on as scheduled (U. Texas). The test CD was distributed at the San Francisco AGU meeting (12/95), inputs were received, and final versions are underway.

Other interesting datasets for PO-DAAC to consider holding were brought up, such as R. Leben's (U. Colorado) merged TOPEX and ERS-1 altimetry dataset. It was subsequently learned that R. Leben prefers to wait until the reprocessed ERS-1 dataset is out to combine this better dataset with TOPEX/Poseidon before wider distribution of his dataset.

The issue of whether to give wide distribution to small datasets offered by members of the community came up. V. Zlotnicki thinks PO-DAAC should become involved only after one or two persons other than the dataset creator have looked at the dataset, because of the implicit seal of approval that a data center's distribution gives to its products. The UWG, however, thinks these small datasets should be given the widest possible distribution as soon as possible. Zlotnicki agreed to aggressively seek derived data products for distribution.

V. Zlotnicki asked the UWG to what extent PO-DAAC should fund scientists in the community-at-large to create products deemed useful to the community. At present such funding comes only from other sources, and PO-DAAC simply funds the additional cost of preparing the dataset for distribution, e.g., reformatting, etc, and that funding is usually spent within JPL. The UWG expressed no objection to PO-DAAC funding scientists in the community-at-large to prepare datasets.

On recompetition, D. Collins briefed the UWG on PO-DAAC's plans to propose the SeaWinds activity. At that time, however, there were no guidelines to proceed further. NASA expects to issue an Announcement at Opportunity in the summer of 1996.

D. Collins briefed the UWG on the hardware coming to JPL as part of the ECS. It will take up close to 700 ft², thanks to careful stacking of components; the mass storage device, a 20 ft x 20 ft footprint, cannot be shrunk further. The new hardware also includes uninterrupted Power Supplies, which PO-DAAC does not presently have, and changes to the A/C system.

PO-DAAC will have to write an FY 1997 proposal in April, before knowing the full details of the competition AO. It was agreed to plan for a May 1996 meeting.

[Table of Contents] [Previous] [Next]