Weather Forecasts Without Boundaries using Grids, P2P and Web services

Excerpts from www.GridToday.com article -- BSA
[ ] M1541298 ) Grid Enables Weather Forecasts Without Boundaries

The results obtained from SIMDAT, a European research and development  project, are increasingly in demand from European and international  meteorological services and are likely to become acknowledged  worldwide. SIMDAT Meteo is working to establish a Virtual Global  Information System Centre (VGISC) for the national meteorological  services of France, Germany and the United Kingdom based on grid  technology to be used within the World Meteorological Organization  Information System (WIS) to provide cost-effective and user-friendly  services. VGISC offers a unique meteorological database integrating a
variety of data and providing secure, reliable and convenient access  via the Internet. It is targeted toward operational services and  research in the domains of meteorology, hydrology and the environment.

The VGISC software developed by the SIMDAT Meteo project partners, led  by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, will offer  meteorological communities worldwide immediate, secure and convenient  access to various data and analysis services, as well as a  user-friendly platform for storage of meteorological data. VGISC will  thus enable the fast exchange of data for numerical weather forecasts,  disaster management and research -- independent of national frontiers  and beyond organizational boundaries.

The infrastructure of this new system will be based on a mesh network of peers and meteorological databases. Messages are interchanged using  algorithms based on mobile telephony technologies and metadata  synchronization on a journalized file system. The grid technology is  based on Open Grid Services Architecture Data Access and Integration  (OGSA-DAI), which is founded on Web service and Web technology  concepts. In addition, standard protocols such as Open Archive  Initiative (OAI) are used to synchronize and integrate existing  archives and databases, as well as to extend interoperability.
Furthermore, VGISC will be a test bed for the ISO 19115 metadata  standard by handling complex data in real-time.

The SIMDAT project is Europe’s contribution to the  infrastructure technology of the emerging WIS as the World  Meteorological Organization (WMO) modernizes and enhances its  long-standing Global Telecommunications System (GTS), an international  network for exchanging mainly meteorological data and warnings in  real-time. In addition, the new system will provide access for all  environmental communities worldwide whereas GTS only allows access for
  the present national weather services of the member states.

The opportunities for the new VGISC technology are excellent as VGISC  is not only of interest within Europe: The national meteorological  services of Australia, China, Japan, Korea and the Russian  Federation’s National Oceanographic Centre have already deployed  the SIMDAT software and are collaborating actively with the European  partners. The software deployment is followed by an increasing number  of meteorological centers and new meteorological datasets from Asia,  Australia, Europe and the United States are steadily being added to  the portal.