Recent Examples of Data Center Use (1999)
U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE)
DOE's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) compiles a
universally accepted database on global, regional, and national
emissions of CO2 (the single most important greenhouse gas)
from fossil-fuel combustion and cement production. The most current
version covers emissions from 1751 through 1996. As concern with the
greenhouse effect as an international science and technology issue has
increased, so has the relevance and value of this database to policy
discussion. For the 1997 Kyoto conference on an international
agreement on limiting greenhouse-gas emissions, CDIAC handled many
requests from U.S. agencies (OSTP, USAID, NOAA), foreign governments
(Canada, Japan), NGOs (NRDC, EDF, WRI), and news media (The Wall Street
Journal, Newsday, CNN, ABC World News Tonight). This database has also
been cited in scientific journals, popular magazines, books, and online
resources as diverse as Scientific American, Population and Development
Review, the United Nations Statistical Year.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
EPA's Environmental Photographic Interpretation Center (EPIC) has used
historical aerial photography obtained from the National Archives, the
Department of Interior, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to
characterize sites for stains, spills, drums, pits, ponds, lagoons, and
drainage alterations. In many cases, this analysis is the only
objective evidence of hazardous waste disposal patterns in areas which
are now covered by houses, schools, or parks. At an average cost of
$10,000 per site, the use of these interpretations have saved the
Superfund Program millions of dollars in cleanup and monitoring costs
annually by directing these activities to the historical areas of
contamination, rather than using anecdotal information.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
The TOPEX/Poseidon satellite has generated a wealth of data regarding
sea level heights, wave heights and surface winds. These data reside in
and are made available to the public by NASA's Physical Oceanography
Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC). Their use is playing a
central role in our understanding of the El Niño phenomenon.
Most importantly, these data help scientists to accurately predict the
onset and intensity of El Niño events up to a year in advance,
greatly mitigating the costs that would otherwise be incurred by lack
of preparedness. The 1982-83 El Niño, prior to TOPEX/Poseidon,
cost the U.S, about $1.5 billion. The losses due to the 1997-98 El
Niño, more severe that the 1982-83 one but after TOPEX/Poseidon,
was only about half as much. Future El Niño predictions, and
their associated cost savings, would not be attainable without the use
of such data residing in NASA's PO.DAAC data center.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
NOAA receives numerous requests from the aviation industry regarding
major aircraft accidents affecting the safe travel of the American
public. In the case of the TWA Flight 800 crash off the Long Island
coast, the NOAA National Climate Data Center, NCDC, provided NORAD
inspectors with a data package including surface and upper air
observations, terminal and winds aloft forecasts, pilot reports, and
low level significant weather prognosis charts. These NCDC data helped
NORAD officials eliminate numerous scenarios as causes for the crash.
Additionally, rapid recovery of crucial aircraft debris by American
Underwater Search and Survey personnel was made possible by utilization
of NCDC archived meteorological observations taken on the Long Island
coast that enabled the search team to locate the drifting debris and
subsequently reassemble the aircraft for accident analysis.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
United States taxpayers pay almost a billion dollars a year to fight
wildfires on public lands. A consortium of Federal and State agencies
prepares estimates of fire danger throughout the fire season in the
Western United States so that crews can be deployed into the areas most
at risk. To improve this process, Earth-observation data from space
provided by the USGS Earth Resources Observation Systems (EROS) Data
Center are being combined with data from other agencies (weather
conditions, fuel moisture, etc.) to build data sets that have multiple
uses. Because the EROS Data Center has been archiving, managing, and
distributing land remote sensing data and other Earth surface data for
more than 25 years, it offers a unique source of information about
contemporary ground conditions as well as a historical record of
vegetation type, location, and condition.
