2016 ESIP Summer Meeting

In order to develop tools that access large quantities of data, we must go beyond the data collection and data granule level. We must be able to both manage and access data at the level of the parameters (aka variables, or measurements) inside the files. A number of applications (e.g., Giovanni, Live Access Server) and standards (e.g., WCS) attempt to do this, but are impeded by the typical ways in which the data are stored, catalogued and inventoried. This session will provide a survey of key applications and technologies that access data at the parameter/measurement/variable level, as well as how data are typically managed. It will be followed by a working session at which we roll up our sleeves in order to make progress on improving the management of such data to make them easier for applications to work with. The key questions to be answered in this session are: What major Earth science tools work with data at the Measurement-Parameter-Variable level? How is Measurement/Parameter/Variables information used by that application? Visualization, Subsetting, Selection Forms, Discovery? Where is that information stored and how is it obtained and maintained?