The
Ecocast framework is comprised of four major technology components
which together create a distributed architecture for the production of
ecosystem nowcasts and forecasts. Each major component of the architecture is
described below. Please see the TOPS white paper for a detailed description of TOPS and the Ecocast architecture.
|
The
Terrestrial Observation and Prediction System (TOPS) is a modeling
software system that brings together technologies in information
technology, weather/climate forecasting, ecosystem modeling, and
satellite remote sensing to enhance management decisions related to
floods, droughts, forest fires, human health, and crop, range, and
forest production. TOPS is currently the core processing engine for the
Ecocast framework, and is designed to provide a suite of ecosystem nowcasts and forecasts known as the TOPS-30. Please see the TOPS white paper for a full description of TOPS.
|
|
|
|
 Weather is a key driver of ecosystem processes, and meteorological data
are criticial inputs to many TOPS component models. The Surface
Observation and Gridding System (SOGS)
provides a capability for automated real-time retrieval, ingestion, and
regridding of climate data from ground-based and satellite
observations, facilitating TOPS ability to deliver nowcasts and
forecasts of ecosystem conditions in near real-time. |
|
|
| The Java Distributed Appliation Framework (JDAF) is a flexible and extensible framework
that facilitates automated data updates, access and manipulation as
well as model integration and intelligent execution. |
|
|
|
|
|
The
conversion of gigabytes of satellite data into usable Ecocasts can be
computationally expensive and require hundreds of hours. To automate
and streamline the process, the Ecocast architecture includes IMAGEbot, a
state of the art planning and scheduling agent deveoped at NASA Ames
Research Center. IMAGEbot is softbot designed for data processing
tasks, such as image processing, text processing and document
conversion. These tasks require the softbot to reason about the
structure and information content of data files and to construct
dataflow programs that pipe multiple data-processing commands together.
|
|
|
|
Last Updated ( Thursday, 04 May 2006 )
|
