The Arctic Observing Viewer: A Tool for Data Discovery, Visualization, Strategic Planning, and Decision Support for Arctic Observing

To better assess development in Arctic Observing and research efforts made by NSF AON, US AON, SAON, and related initiatives, enhancements to the Arctic Observing Viewer (AOV) web mapping application has been published. This helpful resource and information system communicates the who, what, where, and when of "data collection sites" across the vast extent of the Arctic. The precise locations of monitoring assets, observing platforms, and wherever repeat marine or terrestrial measurements and sites have been established are available and visualized through this tool. Over 15,000 sites are documented, including a range of boreholes, ship tracks, buoys, towers, sampling stations, sensor networks, instrumentation trams, vegetation plots, stream gauges, ice cores, observatories, and more. Contributing partners include the US NSF and related Arctic Data Center, NOAA, ADIwg, AOOS, a2dc, CAFF, GINA, IASOA, INTERACT, NASA ABoVE, and USGS, among others. Users have basic GIS capabilities such as visualize, navigate, select, search, draw, print, view details, and follow links to obtain a comprehensive perspective of environmental monitoring efforts. We are developing and enhancing capabilities in the application framework for improved performance. Recent updates include a vastly improved search tool with free text queries, auto-complete, and filters. Team members actively contribute to the Arctic Data Committee interoperability work sessions on web services and metadata. AOV complements other distributed, yet interoperable cyber resources and helps science planners, funding agencies, investigators, data specialists, and citizens to: assess status, identify overlap, fill gaps, optimize sampling design, refine network performance, clarify directions, access data, coordinate logistics, educate communities and spark collaborations to meet Arctic Observing goals. AOV compliments the Arctic Research Mapping Application (armap.org), which is focused on broader discovery-level project information.