During the multi-day ACE-2 experiment,
a huge amount of operational data (primarily meteo and satellite data)
together with a selected set of research data (chemical and physical parameters)
and a list of status reports from the various platforms, needs to be ingested
daily and processed in a timely fashion to prepare a comprehensive report
that serves as input to the daily operations scheduling meetings.
To support these data processing activities at the Tenerife Operations
Center a World Wide Web (WWW ) based system, the so-called On-Line Catalogue
(OLC), has been developed.
The OLC is an on-line , real-time, browse-based system to upload, process
and distribute data. OLC provides the user real-time information about
the status of ACE-2 activities. As soon as data enter the system, they
are directly WWW browseable and viewable both to the ACE-2 users and to
the Internet community.
Each OLC user is able to insert, upload and display data through a user
friendly HTML based interface. The Web pages are built using a small
database, getting dynamic contents to the user and giving to him the possibility
to contribute directly into the experiment.
During a day to the Operations Center a set of time scheduled operations
are performed by the Operations Management Team (OPSMT). These include
definition of missions, go no go decisions about missions, evaluation of
ACE-2 tasks and data management in general. All these activities are well
aided by the OLC system, providing the OPSMT a Web based mission tool,
go-no-go tool and a task evaluation tool.
A set of daily summaries (reports) must be prepared and stored in the OLC
(either automatically or manually) briefing all information collected during
the day. Before the Science Team (ST) meeting the OPSMT has to deliver
a report containing a subset of the information collected during the day,
to be used by the scientists for operations planning and monitoring achievements
evaluation.
At the end of the day, the decisions taken by the ST are assembled automatically
in a set of evening reports and published on the Web. Different platforms
will have different reports, tailored to its requirements. All these reports
are also faxed if needed.
The OLC has been developed to be used with Netscape JavaScript capable
browsers (e.g. Netscape Navigator 2.0 or higher). Have been reported some
problems with Microsoft IE 3 related to JavaScript implementation.
The OLC is not working with Mosaic browsers at all.
To use the OLC correctly you need to configure your browser to accept
cookies. To do so, go into the and enable the JavaScript language
into the Options-Network Preferencies-Languages menu.
The OLC has a set of user levels, each one corresponding to different
privileges and different level of information. The table below summarize
the OLC users, the information levels and the class of allowed operations
:
| User | Information level | Allowed operations |
| Operations Management Team (OPSMT) | 0 | Everything. Inserting meteo data and platform status information. On-Line Data processing. Operations planning, tasks evaluation and decisions making. Display of all available information (meteo images, status reports, missions performed and status of ACE-2 tasks) |
| Science Team (ST) | 1 | Operations planning, tasks evaluation and decisions making. Display of all available information (meteo images, status reports, missions performed and status of ACE-2 tasks) |
| Forecasr Team (FT - INM and KNMI), Durkee, UKMO | 2 | Inserting meteo forecast (trajectories, satellite images, models output, meteo text description and outlook). Display of all available information (meteo images, status reports, missions performed and status of ACE-2 tasks) |
| Platforms (Sagres, Izana, Taganana, R/V Vodyanitsky, Hidalgo, C-130, Citation, Pelican, Merlin, Dornier and ARAT) | 3 | Inserting platform status information and on-line raw data files. Display of all available information (meteo images, status reports, missions performed and status of ACE-2 tasks) |
| The "guest" user | 4 | Display of all available information (meteo images, status reports, missions performed and status of ACE-2 tasks) |
When the user accesses the OLC through the browser, the Log-in page
is displayed asking for a user name and password. Each OLC user has a specific
user name and password. A user session will last 4 hours.
To be used with Netscape 2.0 or higher; problems and questions can be sent to dm@ace2.iac.es Please, insert your login user name and password :
|
After each user has logged in to the OLC system he/she will see different
pages, each one containg a set of links to be used to access the system
functionalties.
When the user log-out and the re-log-in the main page will be displayed
by default.
Each Web page has a common header containg a title, the actual time in
UTC and a comment giving the name of the user logged in.
Environment Institute - Environmental Information Systems |
Environment Institute - Environmental Information Systems |
Environment Institute - Environmental Information Systems |
Environment Institute - Environmental Information Systems |
Environment Institute - Environmental Information Systems |
Environment Institute - Environmental Information Systems |
Environment Institute - Environmental Information Systems |
Environment Institute - Environmental Information Systems |
Each ACE-2 platform (surface based and aircrafts) uses this page to
insert a selected number of status
information and chemical/physical parameters about aerosols (Status
Report). The status information indicate whether the platform has successfully
partecipated in the tasks in which it was involved, whether instrumentation
is/was working correctly, the expected status of the platform the next
days and any other observations or description about undertaken actions.
Ground based sites provide also a set of numeric data (specific for
each platform), concerning cloud cover, type of clouds, type of airmass
aloft and a set of data files containing measured values about aerosol
number concentration, wind speed and direction, aerosol absorption/scattering,
total aerosol mass and aerosol surface area and volume. These data are
called On-Line
data.
These data are additionaly off-line processed by the Operations Management
Team to produce a set of times series describing parameters along a specific
period of time.
The Operations Management Team (OPSMT) can insert any status report,
simply by selecting the platform name from the list (e.g. the platform
is missing an internet connection or a problem occurred and the report
cannot be filled in by the platform self).
When a list item is selected, the platform specific page is displayed.
If a report has been already received, the link is not displayed and the
delivery time and the reporter are put into the "Delivery time"
and "Report by" columns.
To display the content of a status report already submitted, the user must
go to the view today's available information page and select "Reports
received from platforms".
|
Every platform (Sagres, Hidalgo, Taganana, Izana, R/V, C-130, Citation,
Pelican, Merlin, Dornier, ARAT) has to fill in a set of text fields that
provide a debriefing of the undertaken actions, summarize the staus of
the instrumentation and describe the expected status of the platform for
next days.
For each missions planned for day N, in which the platform could have been involved the user must answer two questions for each task :
In addition, the user can provide an optional description for unplanned actions undertaken for day N:
(one line per instrument : indicate exact period of malfunctioning, if
possible) (TEXT description)
Each aircraft has also to specify the number of flight hours for the day, additionaly to the status information .
Additional data provided by surface based platforms consist of a set
of numerical values about cloud cover, airmass (BL/FT) and type of clouds,
and a group of data files containing measured values of aerosol number
concentration, wind speed and direction, aerosol absorption/scattering,
total aerosol mass and aerosol surface area/volume.
The data files are "attached" to the status report through the
upload browser facility.
Sagres
Sagres provides all status
information plus a specific set of data :
Izana provides all status information plus a specific set of data :
Hidalgo provides all status information plus a specific set of data :
The Ship (R/V Vodyanitsky) provides all status information plus a specific set of data :
The major part of the meteo forecasts and bulletins for the whole ACE-2 area are provided by INM, KNMI and UKMO meteo offices. The Naval Postgraduate School of the US Navy provides specific images from the NOAA-12 and NOAA-14 satellites, while Meteo France, NASA and MEDUSE prepare a set of dedicated images and model outputs to be uploaded into the OLC.
The OLC has three special users (FT, UKMO, Durkee) designed to input
all these meteo information. The inserted data are both graphic files,
text descriptions and numeric values. Data files are attached to the "report"
using the HTML upload facility; as soon as the report
is sent to the OLC both text fileds, numeric data and files are transferred
to the server and stored in to the database.
All meteo data files (trajectories, satellite images and model outputs)
must be in GIF or JPEG format; any other file format will be allowed, but
will not be directly displayed using the view and browse tools (instead
a link will be visualized).
The data input phase is incremental, allowing the user to insert data in
more steps. Each set of data transferred to the system will modify the
input page layout, substituting input fileds with links to the OLC stored
files. The input phase will terminate when the list will be completed.
The possibility to upload data in more steps together with the World Wide
distribution of the system, allow to a group of users (e.g. from different
places in the world) to "collaborate", each one giving his information
contribute to the system.
Every day, a new set of files and links is stored in to the system, labelling
each piece of information with the date and hour.
Both KNMI and INM users log in the OLC as FT user. The input page is shared by the two user groups; each user will fill in ONLY the specific subparts.
In addition, the INM meteo office must provide a set of meteo forecasts :
(TEXT description)
The input page for the UKMO user contains the following products :
The Durkee user has to insert a set of NOAA satellite images. The input
page contains the following products :
The Operations Management Team must insert a set of graphic data files received during the day by other meteo groups (Dulac, TOMS, MEDUSE). The input page contains the following products :
