[okfn-discuss] Open Environmental Science working group?

Wed Oct 17 03:08:30 UTC 2012

Just wanted to followup on this topic, due to an event today:

I was at a conference for users and developers of an atmospheric model
(CMAQ). Mostly it was presentations of research results (see the agenda
@

http://www.cmascenter.org/conference/2012/agenda.cfm

) but we also had a long general meeting about the model as code, its
development, and (mostly) needs for related tools and infrastructures.
One topic was the need for better data sharing and management: we
currently tend to physically ship a lot of physical hard drives after
searching our social networks for folks with needed datasets. One
response is to start a torrent network, but we also need ways/places to
archive searchably. I gave a quick OTTOMH pitch about options of which
I'm aware (pangaea.de, figshare.com, thedatahub.org) and gave props to
the OKF.

There definitely seemed to be interest in this topic, so I'd like to
find out more about interests and plans in this space. The upside of
working with a group like CMAQ is, there's a real "itch to scratch,"
so one could anticipate substantial tire-kicking for anything
resembling a working solution. The downsides include

* CMAQ is a regional-scale air-quality-oriented model (though we're
  working on hemispheric, and I and another guy showed work on
  bringing GHGs into the model), not a global climate model. Hence
  it's much less sexy :-)

* While the user group is very international, and the model is used
  internationally (both for research and regulation), the largest part
  of the user base is US, and the largest part of that works with US
  state and local governments and MPOs, for whom discussion of climate
  issues is often toxic. Hence a name like "Open Climate Science working
  group" could be problematic, especially if we get a Romney-Ryan
  administration :-(

FWIW, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox.com>