Towards Interoperable Data Access through Climate.gov

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate.gov team is enhancing users' ability to locate, preview, and acquire climate data. The Climate.gov team has created the Data Access and Interoperability project to design a web-based platform where interoperability between systems can be leveraged to allow greater data discovery, access, visualization and delivery. The team envisions an Interoperable Data Platform wherein systems can integrate with each other to support the synthesis of Climate data. Interoperability is the ability for users to discover the available climate data, preview and interact with the data, and acquire the data in common digital formats through a simple web-based interface. The Climate.gov Interoperable Data Platform uses the concepts of Representational State Transfer (REST) and common best practices for Web Services. Emerging standards for automation of machine-to-machine operations, such as OpenSearch autodiscovery, are being implemented throughout the Data Platform to ensure harmonization between data service providers, integrators and consumers. Implementation of common specifications will ensure compatibility between systems within NOAAand non-NOAA systems. The goal of the Interoperable Data Platform is to leverage existing web services, standards and existing solutions across the Earth sciences domain instead of creating new technologies. The Data Platform strives to become an integral part of the integration mechanisms supporting a system-of-systems ecosystem for Earth sciences information. As the team works across the organization, it will evaluate the capabilities of the participating systems to capture and assess the relative maturity of each system according to the Technology Infusion Working Group (TIWG) Interoperability Readiness Levels (IRL) as the reference for the interoperability mapping within NOAA. This will help establish the gaps and opportunities for integrating systems across a common set of discrete aspects of interoperability. Applying the principles of IRL will give NOAA reasonable and consistent snapshots of current readiness of systems to be interoperable, but also provide consistent targets for evolving a more integratable ecosystem for Earth Sciences data throughout NOAA. This presentation will provide an overview of the Climate.gov Data Interoperability concept, explore the use of the TIWG IRL within the process, examine the technologies and standards being used, and discuss the challenges and ongoing activities within the Interoperable Data Platform team.