IRI Data Library: enhancing accessibility of climate knowledge

Abstract

Background: Climate variability affects a broad swath of socio-economic sectors, and if it increases or the sector becomes overly-tuned to past or present climate conditions, climate variability becomes of increasing concern to a wide range of non-climate specialists. The significant challenges to building the capacity of non-climate specialists to use climate information in research and decision-making include the difficulties in accessing relevant and timely quality-controlled data and information in formats that can be readily incorporated into specific analysis and reporting.Methods: The IRI Data Library is a facility designed to cope with these issues of information dissemination. Methods developed include Map Rooms which are designed for rapid access to needed information for particular user groups, analysis tools useful for a wide range of users (especially while training), and a metadata framework that uses semantic technologies to transform metadata from a variety of sources into a variety of standards. Results: The results are tools to merge standard climate products with GIS information (e.g. averaging climate data over the political boundaries used to geolocate health and socio-economic data), as well as simplified access/ transformation of large datasets only available as collections of many files or service points elsewhere. Conclusions:The IRI Data Library is thus a key platform that makes climate and other data products more widely accessible through tool development, data organization and transformation, and data/technology transfer.

Long-lead ENSO predictability from CMIP5 decadal hindcasts

“…In addition, near-surface temperature anomalies from the NOAA CPC CAMS dataset (CAMS, Ropelewski et al 1985) and precipitation from the WMO/DWD GPCC Version 4 at 2.5 resolution (GPCCv4, Schneider et al 2010) are used to evaluate the decadal systems' skill to represent the ENSO teleconnections. The three datasets were accessed through the IRI Data Library (Blumenthal et al 2014). …”

The International Research Institute for Climate & Society: why, what and how

“…All three areas are inter-related. Service includes applied research and development of technical products that are used broadly by our partners, such as the IRI Data Library (Blumenthal et al 2014) and the IRI Net Assessment seasonal climate forecasts (Barnston and Tippett 2014). Service also includes technology transfer to partners, such as National Meteorological Services or Regional Climate Centers, to tailor and deliver their own climate information.…”

Software to facilitate remote sensing data access for disease early warning systems

“…These data can be queried as county- and state-level spatial summaries for various temporal summary windows. The IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library (http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/) provides access to a wide variety of climate datasets, including many remote sensing datasets, via a web application that allows customizable downloads via menus and a scripting interface (Blumenthal et al, 2014). Some of these products have been specifically developed to support malaria early warning and other disease forecasting and mapping projects in East Africa (Grover-Kopec et al, 2005; Ceccato et al, 2012).…”