Earth System Atlas::About

About the Earth System Atlas

An Earth System Atlas is under development which will offer the community a web-based “one-stop shopping” facility for widely useful data sets drawn from all areas of environmental research. Data sets (both observational and modelled) for the initial phase of the Atlas will encompass physiography, physical/chemical ocean, atmospheric dynamics/chemistry, climate/paleoclimate, physical/chemical land, biogeochemical cycles, ecosystems, and human dimensions).

The Atlas will operate on three levels of complexity, serving the global change scientific research community, and the policy-making community, while also providing an educational resource for schools, colleges and universities. Detailed explanations, tailored for each audience, will accompany each data set to enhance understanding of the data's usefulness and limitations.

Graphical and written information will be freely provided via a sophisticated, yet simple to use, web interface that will run in any web browser. This web portal will contain functionality tools that will enable the user to combine, manipulate and render graphically data sets from many different areas of environmental research, in some cases data sets which have not previously been compared. It will be possible, for example, to manipulate and overlay time series to help identify conceptual gaps in our knowledge of the environment.

A unique aspect of the Atlas is that all data sets will be peer-reviewed, providing data collectors with a citable publication outlet, among the first of its kind. The review process will take account of many factors, including methods of data acquisition, instrumental limitations, and processing and filtering techniques, and will also address modeling issues where appropriate. Evaluations will be performed by experts from around the world, requiring coordination and collaboration between scientists within sub-communities and between regions (particularly in the developing world, the nexus of many of the critical data and analyses), as well as between different scientific communities such as oceanography and atmospheric science, and between scientific and social disciplines such as economics, politics, and social institutions.

The Atlas will also project certain aspects of the Earth system into the future on the basis of a prescribed set of scenarios, such as those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Scenarios of emissions and land use leading to maps of climate parameters, biomes, ice cover, etc. and finally societal impacts and vulnerability, will be included in the Atlas in order to place present trends into perspective for the user.

Data for the Atlas

Ultimately, the Atlas will contain data from all areas of the Earth system. For prototype development, we are focusing on approximately a dozen test data sets collected from various disciplines. These will be used to test the peer-review process (see below) which will effectively serve as quality control, as well as the Atlas' graphical interface. Each data set will ultimately be accompanied by a document describing its history (including whether it is strictly observational or a data/model output hybrid; what post-acquisition processing has been applied, known issues with a given data set, and so on). This document will initially aid the reviewers in their task, and form part of the finished documentation that will be made available to the end user. These explanations will also be targeted to accommodate various levels of expertise, from serious scientific investigation to K-12 education to the informed public.

The following list is not intended to be exhaustive:

Physiography
Basic physiographic maps will serve as a useful backdrop for the Earth system maps that are central to the Atlas. These include topography/bathymetry, drainage networks, sea level (coastlines), political boundaries, and other basic information. The user will have the capability to superimpose any of these supporting maps on their maps of interest to help place the data in the appropriate context.
Climate/Paleoclimate
Ice and sediment cores, mean climate (temperature and precipitation, clouds, wind, etc.), rapid climate change (e.g., Younger Dryas cooling; Dansgaard-Oeschger Events); atmospheric circulation, radiation budget climate variability, and extreme events will make it possible to display maps of the present climate as well as time slices from the past (e.g. last glacial maximum, mid-Holocene climatic optimum, and data going back to the very earliest paleo records). Similar to the physiographic data, a few basic climate related data sets (e.g. temperature, precipitation) will be included in the initial phase in order to provide the carbon related data with the appropriate context.
Atmospheric Constituents
The chemical makeup of the atmosphere controls in large part its optical properties and thus the Earth's radiation balance. Aerosols and trace gases will be included in the Atlas as well as non-point deposition of critical chemical species (e.g. N, Fe, etc.). The initial phase will be limited to carbon such as CO2, CH4, black carbon, etc.
Physical/Chemical Ocean
A number of critical ocean data sets will contribute to the Atlas. Ocean circulation, sea surface temperature, tides, chemistry (CO2, CH4, clatherates, Fe, etc.), ocean-atmosphere fluxes, sediments, sea ice, salinity, anoxia, and other aspects all will be available to the user. Given the importance of the ocean in regulating both the physical and chemical characteristics of the Earth system, this will be a key segment of the Atlas.
Physical/Chemical Land
The physical and chemical attributes of terrestrial systems also play and important role in controlling Earth system behavior. Surface roughness, surface temperature, albedo, ice/permafrost, soils, weathering and erosion and other surface features will be available on the Atlas.
Hydrology
Water plays an essential role in the Earth system, supporting life, transporting materials and energy, and defining many human population centers and thus land use/emissions. A number of specific data sets will ultimately be included in the Atlas including, but not limited to water balance, lake levels, river discharge, sediment loads, dams, wetlands, ground water, soil moisture, floods/droughts, and isotopic information. These will be available for superposition with the myriad biological and social aspects to explore the details of the role of water in the Earth system.
Biogeochemical Cycles
Data will be included that pertains to various aspects of the global biogeochemical cycles, including C, N, P, S, Si, Fe, and reduction/oxidation, as well as the various biogeochemical interactions between the different parts of the Earth system. These cycles will be displayed in terms of the geographic distribution of fluxes, sources, sinks, and reservoirs.
Ecosystems
The importance of the role of life in the Earth system is being increasingly widely recognized as observations and models highlight the feedbacks between climate, biogeochemical cycles, and ecosystems. IGBP, its Earth System Science Partners (ESSP), and others have made significant strides in understanding the role of ecosystems in modulating climate change and anthropogenic perturbations. As such, the Atlas will represent a key conduit for the dissemination of information regarding global ecosystems and their changing distributions. Terrestrial and marine biomes, Net Primary Productivity (NPP) biodiversity, food webs, reefs, deep-sea biota, fire, vegetation indices (e.g. NDVI), ocean color, and land cover all lend themselves to graphical representation in the Atlas.
Human Dimensions
The role of human society in the Earth system is an important component of the proposed Atlas from two standpoints: the role of humans in affecting climate change, and the impact of climate change in the Earth system on present societies. Data will be included regarding vulnerability distribution to various environmental stresses, pests, human health and disease vectors. Only the most reliable and well-documented data will be presented in this regard to ensure that the Atlas is not viewed as alarmist or inflammatory.
Future Scenarios
While much of the Atlas will be devoted to present visualizations and reconstructions of past and present data, it would be of great interest to many to include the capability to use current models to project certain aspects of the Earth system into the future on the basis of a prescribed set of scenarios, such as those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Scenarios of emissions and land use leading to maps of climate parameters, biomes, ice cover, etc. and finally societal impacts and vulnerability will be included in the Atlas in order to place present trends into perspective for the user. There is a wide range of possible futures, both in the input scenario, as well as in modeled outcome. As such, a full range will be presented in the Atlas as a reflection both of uncertainty of modeled processes, and of actual input scenarios of emissions and land use.

Unique Features of the Earth System Atlas

Peer review of data sets
All data sets to be included in the Atlas will be peer-reviewed to ensure data quality, documentation of collection methodology, and assessment of comparable related data sets. The user will know why a particular data set was selected, how the data were collected, for what applications the data would be appropriate, and what other alternative data sets are available. This aspect of the Atlas renders it more like a journal than merely a whiz-bang data viewing technology, and provides scientific credibility to the Atlas contents, while giving the data community a proper publication outlet for data sets themselves, a current lacking in the literature.
Citation of Data in the Atlas
The Earth System Atlas will be the first formal means for publishing data sets in a citable format in the United States. Data sets will have DOI designations and will be searchable in GEOREF, Web of Science, and other indices, and will serve just like a publication in any other journal. In effect, they will be publishable in their own right rather than just appended to a scientific paper. Publishing a data set in the Atlas will count as a real publication, and we will encourage publication of additional scientific papers based on those data in disciplinary journals. It will give the data community a much appreciated formal publication outlet for their data results. By using the Atlas, not only will the data contributors benefit, but the entire community will gain new insights from the juxtaposition of their own and other data sets through the various data manipulation tools provided in the Atlas. These should lead to additional publications that would not have otherwise been possible.
Targeted explanations
Each data set (and the maps to be generated from each) will have explanatory text included that is tailored to the needs of the target audience, making the language and content suitable for the scientific community, the lay public, policy makers, and K-12 school children. These explanations will be written by appropriate experts in each field.
Data manipulation and display
The software which delivers the Atlas to the world will provide to a large array of statistical algorithms, enabling the user to process and combine data sets in a wide variety of ways, and then display the results with a high degree of graphical freedom. This will make the Atlas a scientific tool which may be employed for serious exploratory research, helping to trigger new ideas. The Atlas will also help to identify gaps in existing data sets and point the way for future observational and modeling activities.