Physical Oceanography DAAC Users Working Group Meeting
- Victor Zlotnicki (vz@pacific.jpl.nasa.gov ), Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The Users Working Group (UWG) for the Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC) met July 9 and 10 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Members present were Robert Evans (University of Miami), Ron Fauquet (NOAA/National Ocean Data Center), Michael Freilich (Oregon State University), David Glover (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, chair), C.-K. Shum (University of Texas), and Victor Zlotnicki (JPL, PO.DAAC Task Scientist). Members David Adamec (Goddard Space Flight Center), William Emery (University of Colorado, co-chair) and Tim Liu (JPL) could not attend. Also present were Mary Reph (GSFC, ESDIS Project), Joy Colucci (Hughes-EOSDIS Core System, ECS) and Glenn Shirtliffe (Hughes-ECS), as well as PO.DAAC personnel, including Don Collins (Task Manager), Elaine Dobinson (Deputy Manager), Tom Antczack (System), Robert Benada (Datasets), Sanda Mandutianu (Software), and Bill Stromberg (Operations).
The meeting agenda included a presentation and discussion of the proposed FY 97 PO.DAAC Work Plan, a discussion of UWG membership, and an update on the status of recompetition.
TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) has been flying since August 1992. PO.DAAC will start reprocessing past T/P data by September 1996, while at the same time processing the current T/P data with new algorithms, thus running two processing streams at the same time, one with time-critical dependencies. Over the past months, PO.DAAC has implemented and tested the new algorithms, including a last-minute correction to the recently discovered clock-drift algorithm. The UWG felt that the experience gained in this task will be essential to other parts of EOSDIS, as this mode (reprocessing old data while keeping up with the new data the satellite collects) will be common in the EOS era. The UWG urged PO.DAAC personnel to share this experience in a formal manner with the ESDIS Project.
NSCAT was launched on August 17 (Japan time) on board ADEOS-I. Much of the FY 97 effort is centered on reformatting, archiving, and distributing NSCAT data, and helping users with any problems. PO.DAAC has made necessary changes to its internal software and passed readiness reviews with NSCAT personnel. M. Freilich pointed out that a proposed repackaging of NSCAT data required NSCAT Manager approval.
Hughes-ECS Version 1 hardware and software will arrive at PO.DAAC during FY 97. The added hardware and personnel and their space requirements were presented to the UWG. The issue of functions appearing in both ECS personnel plans and JPL personnel plans was discussed. The issue of personnel 'ramp-up' was discussed; people who need to be hired late in a fiscal year but whose funding in the following FY has not been specifically approved by ESDIS. It was recommended that ESDIS approve a personnel profile over 3 years.
Several Pathfinder data sets (reprocessed older satellite data under the NASA Pathfinder Announcement of Opportunity) will be processed or distributed by PO.DAAC during FY 97: AVHRR-oceans, with sea surface temperature; Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) with water vapor, wind speed, ice edge, etc; and altimetry, especially sea level from the ERS-1 satellite. The discussion on these data sets centered on the need to have sufficiently close relationships with the groups doing the processing, so that their data and all pertinent information would migrate smoothly to PO.DAAC and thus to users.
Seawinds is planned for a 1999 launch on ADEOS-II (Japan). There were concerns over the physical data path from Japan. ESDIS is responsible for bringing the data from this U.S. instrument, but since the spacecraft is non-U.S. it seems to fall through the organizational cracks. The UWG advised the PO.DAAC Manager to obtain written confirmation from the ESDIS Project on its responsibility for the physical data path from Japan and its plans to implement it. Another issue associated with Seawinds is the AMSR data; it is necessary for the Seawinds processing, except the 86-GHz channel, so these data will come to Seawinds/PO.DAAC. With the 86-GHz channel, the data are useful to the EOS PM MIMR Team, both to check algorithms and for science applications. The UWG advised PO.DAAC to clarify their needs and plans to use the ADEOS-II AMSR data, and plan for an additional effort on the Seawinds work.
Internal PO.DAAC software to maintain the Version 0 databases will be used for another 5 years, until the transition to Version 1 is complete. Their sustaining engineering and minor improvements are planned for FY 97.
Priorities: The UWG advised PO.DAAC that the following priority should be used in case of a funding shortfall: work on all current missions has higher priority than work on future missions. This specifically means Version 0 support of current missions, then Version 1 support of the same missions, then future missions. It was agreed that doing a bad job on supporting current missions should disqualify any DAAC from future work.
UWG Membership: The UWG accepted the resignations of Lee Fu and Bruce Douglas, and accepted Ron Fauquet as a new member. The UWG advised the PO.DAAC Scientist to invite a member of the EOS MIMR Team to be part of the UWG if the Team agrees for PO.DAAC to handle the ADEOS-II AMSR data. Co-chairs David Glover and William Emery expressed their intention to step down from the Chair, which the UWG accepted. The UWG agreed to the same term limits as other EOS panels (2 years, with another 2-year re-election) for the Chair. By mail vote, the UWG elected David Adamec as the new Chair, and Victor Zlotnicki as ex-officio Deputy Chair.
DAAC Recertification: The UWG recommended that the chairs of each of the DAAC UWGs be members of the Recertification Board.
The FY 97 Work Plan was circulated to the UWG for their comments by August 1 and delivered to the ESDIS Project August 9.
The next meeting is planned for January 1997, and will include a review of the Data Migration Plan.
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