Antarctic Data A Physical Sciences Perspective

Tony Phillips

Our research

Understanding past climate change

Predicting future climate change

The data we use

Our data• We have identified the best current data sets (for us)

• We maintain our own archives of commonly-used data

• Everything is held in UK Met Office ‘PP’ format

• I maintain a web-based data catalogue

• I can provide figures, data or pointers to data

Acquiring data

• Data discovery is not generally something that I have to deal with

• I have only used the AMD on one occasion and found it hard to use

– Relative prominence of browsing and searching

– Restricting the view to data sets available online

– Getting to the data, rather than metadata

– Prominence of relevant results when browsing

– Leads to too many apparent ‘dead ends’

The wider physical science community

• What data sets do they generally use?

• Do they use the AMD and/or NADCs to get data?

• If not, where do they go?

• What is most important to them when they’re looking for data?

Use of the AMD

• About half of the respondents were aware of having used the AMD

• Those who had, generally found what they were looking for and thought of the AMD as ‘similar to’ other online databases

• Limitations of spatial searching in the AMD

• Issue over awareness of the AMD?

How do people acquire data?

• Places that researchers already use

• ‘Widely known international data centres’ for a subject area

• Asking the relevant person in the community

• Googling for the data

What is most important?

• Knowing that where they’re searching will take them to the data, not just metadata

• Knowing that the data are:

– available online

– in a useful format (ASCII, Excel, NetCDF)

– supported by relevant metadata (format, origination, quality control)

Simplifying access to data

• There are many sources of data, providing data in a variety of formats

• Data centres can add value by making sure the data are easily accessible in a uniform, standard format

• WDC in Boulder were praised for taking data in ‘almost any format’ and doing the work to make it usable

Key points

• Raising awareness of the AMD

• Making the AMD easier to use for users with less experience

• Ensuring that the most generally-relevant results appear first

• Ensuring that the data are easily accessible

• Use of simple, standard data formats

• Understanding what users need is key