Elsevier

Computers & Geosciences

Volume 48, November 2012, Pages 57-66
Computers & Geosciences

AMFIC-WSDB: A web database for hosting and easy retrieval of atmospheric data from satellites

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2012.05.001Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper presents the unique features and functionality of the AMFIC Web Satellite Database (AMFIC-WSDB) which was developed within the Air quality Monitoring and Forecasting In China (AMFIC) European Union (EU) project. The method used for the analysis of the SCIAMACHY ENVISAT CH4, CO, NO2 and SO2 satellite data that emerged from the AMFIC work packages, in order to be hosted by the AMFIC-WSBD, is described. Today, there is an increased demand for satellite data not only from specialized users but also from researchers and public institutions for research, management, information and education purposes. The AMFIC-WSDB has been developed to address the need of those users for fast and easy access to atmospheric composition data. Together with the web interface, it constitutes an integrated system, hosting spatially and temporally homogenized satellite products. The main idea behind the AMFIC-WSDB (http://www.amfic.satellite-earth-simulator.com/) is to offer timeseries ascii files through a set of interactive maps. This makes the database ideal not only for those interested in global datasets but also for users interested in specific geographical spots. Data from other state-of-the-art environmental satellite sensors (e.g. MODIS, OMI and GOME-2) could be easily integrated in the database in the future.

Highlights

► We analyzed atmospheric composition satellite data from SCIAMACHY aboard ENVISAT. ► Aerosol and cloud related data from MODIS TERRA and AQUA were also analyzed. ► The data are or could be hosted by the AMFIC Web Satellite Data Base (AMFIC-WSDB). ► We present the main features and advantages of the AMFIC-WSDB. ► A 5 min project on methane highlights the easiness of using the AMFIC-WSDB.

Section snippets

HDF and netCDF files

The increasing demand for satellite and ground-based atmospheric composition data has led to a significant number of simple web databases of which satellite datasets are available. Most of them offer data in binary formats (HDF, HDF-EOS, netCDF, etc.) which makes their use possible only by a specialized group of the scientific community. The availability of data is in this form because the amount of information is enormous and a way must be found so that the files have an acceptable size. With

Acquiring data from the AMFIC-WSDB

As mentioned above the AMFIC-WSDB was developed taking into account the need for easier acquisition and analysis of satellite data from users around the world with different levels of expertise. Scientists not specializing in satellite remote sensing or scientists interested in data around a specific spot (e.g. for validation purposes, campaigns, etc.) have direct access to ascii columnar files through a set of interactive maps, instead of getting into the time consuming and complex procedure

Some technical details

This paper mostly focuses on the analysis of the datasets that are hosted by the database and the interactive way the data can be acquired from the user interface. A detailed technical description of how the AMFIC-WSDB was built is not within the main scopes of this is paper. However, in the following lines we give some technical details. First of all, AMFIC-WSDB is a MySQL database while the site has been developed using php and runs on an Apache server under Linux. We have indexed a simple

AMFIC-WSDB through a short scientific project

Here, a 5 min scientific project, showing the potential use of the AMFIC web database in educational as well as scientific purposes, is presented. The project is based on a paper by Xiong et al. (2009). Using satellite observations from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) satellite instrument aboard AQUA (Aumann et al., 2003) and Tracer Model 3 (TM3; Houweling et al., 2006) model results for 2003–2007, they showed that the tropospheric CH4 enhancement in summer and its rapid disappearance in

Summary and Conclusions

In this paper the analysis methodology applied on the data that emerged from the various AMFIC work packages was described. The original data were brought to an ascii columnar timeseries format so that they can easily be acquired through the AMFIC EU project web satellite database (AMFIC-WSDB) in an interactive way and further be analyzed from the users. The same data analysis method was also applied on other datasets showing that aerosol and cloud related satellite data from MODIS TERRA and

Acknowledgments

This work was funded partly under the AMFIC Project of the European Commission (Aeronautics and Space STREP, Contract no. 030940). The authors would like to thank their AMFIC partners for providing the data included in the AMFIC-WSDB. Many thanks are also expressed to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Level 1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS) for making available the MODIS data, NASA's GES DISC for making available the AIRS methane data and NOAA ESRL and WMO's WDCGG

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