Climate Data Processing Made Easy

A main objective of the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) science missions is to develop a comprehensive set of long-term, consistent, and validated data products that are valid across multiple missions and satellite sensors. Creating climate quality datasets is a difficult task. Products tracking global trends require accurate calibration and fully verified algorithms. Calibration and algorithm changes both result in large amounts of data needing to be reprocessed and analyzed. This process is iterative, and processing time increases with the size of the data set. Computing systems that are difficult to use and maintain often compound the difficulty of creating climate products. These systems result in scientists acting as engineers; large engineering staffs; or both. The University of Wisconsin-Madison atmosphere PEATE has developed a scalable processing system that is easy for scientists to use, and for engineers and operators to build, test and maintain.