An Open Geospatial Consortium Standards-based Arctic Climatology Sensor Network Prototype

We have constructed a prototype Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards-based Arctic Climatology Sensor Network Prototype (ACSNP) in response to recent developments in sensor technology and Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) wireless communications in Barrow, Alaska for the National Science Foundation (NSF). The OGC standards enable increased, interoperability, scalability, and extensibility for geospatial information at a reduced cost. Our approach for the prototype is to integrate established technologies to create near-real-time geographic information networks (GINs). We linked a variety of meteorological and image sensors to wide area wireless networks in Barrow, Alaska. The network is a TCP/IP-based 700 Mhz WipLL network consisting of a 16 kilometer diameter local cloud as well as Iridium Open Port Units, which allow for global connectivity, at other remote research stations and on ice breakers. The Department of Energy (DOE) building in Barrow is the location of two automatically populated mirrored File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers running Microsoft Server 2003 within a virtualized environment. High availability for the GIN is met through the use of virtualization as well as redundant power supplies and hardware-based security. The data are automatically harvested from the remote site over redundant 2XT-1 satellite links to the central data center in Cincinnati, Ohio where it is formatted to comply with the OGC database initiatives to create an OGC-compliant geodatabase within Microsoft SQL Server 2008. This cyberinfrastructure is remotely monitored 24X7 tracking network components and mission critical applications providing notification of potential capacity, connection and performance problems. The final web publication is the result of a three part system; geodatabases, web services and web applications. A data harvester is used for automating data retrieval and distribution into a geodatabase. The harvester allows for centralized control and monitoring of transfers through a browser interface and provides a comprehensive built-in scheduler and produces complete reports. A function of the database is the conversion of raw noncompliant sensor data into the standardized OGC geodatabase. For web services we use ESRI’s ArcGIS Server technology for retrieval and publication utilizing ESRI’s compliance with OGC web services. These web services may then be embedded within clients, such as ESRI’s ArcGIS Desktop and Google Earth for analysis, and web applications. The Arctic Climatology Sensor Network Prototype is accessible at OpenSensorMap.com.