maps

Project Vulcan measures CO2 emissions on the scale of individual factories and neighborhoods

Miriam Lueck — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:28:29 -0700

Description

From the project website:
"The Vulcan Project is a NASA/DOE funded effort under the North American Carbon Program (NACP)to quantify North American fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at space and time scales much finer than has been achieved in the past. The purpose is to aid in quantification of the North American carbon budget, to support inverse estimation of carbon sources and sinks, and to support the demands posed by the launch of the Orbital Carbon Observatory (OCO)scheduled for 2008/2009. The detail and scope of the Vulcan CO2 inventory has also made it a valuable tool for policymakers, demographers and social scientists.

The Vulcan project has achieved the quantification of the United States fossil fuel CO2 emissions at the scale of individual factories, powerplants, roadways and neighborhoods. We have built the entire inventory on a common 10 km grid to facilitate atmospheric modeling. Vulcan is available at the hourly timescale for the year 2002. In addition to improvement in space and time resolution, Vulcan is quantified at the level of fuel type, economic sub-sector, and county/state identification.

Work is underway to complete similar inventories for Canada and Mexico, to include CO and NOx emissions, and incorporate biotic-based fuels.

Vulcan was led by an excellent team of researchers at Purdue University. Key collaborators on the project included investigators at Colorado State University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Explore the Vulcan website for the Vulcan gridded data, methodological details, publications, and analysis. A major new initiative, launched from the Vulcan experience is currently being built - the Hestia Project - in which we plan to quantify greenhouse gas emissions for the entire planet at the building scale with complete driving processes."

Earth Systems & Environmental Science

Source

http://www.purdue.edu/eas/carbon/vulcan/index.php

Open Geospatial Consortium Approves Google KML as Open Standard

Michael Liebhold — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:28:11 -0700

Description

The members of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) announced the approval of the OpenGIS KML Encoding Standard (OGC KML), marking KML's transition into an open standard which will be maintained by the OGC. Developers will now have a standard approach for using KML to code and share visual geographic content in existing or future web-based online maps and 3D geospatial browsers like Google EarthTM.

KML is an XML-based programming language, originally developed to manage the display of geospatial data in Google Earth. It's still used heavily in Google Earth but is also supported by a variety of vendors' tools and mapping websites including Microsoft.

The OpenGIS KML 2.2 Encoding Standard formalizes the KML 2.2 model and language while remaining backwards compatible with existing KML 2.2 files and tools. In comparison with the GoogleTM KML 2.2 Reference, the standard defines:

* the KML 2.2 geometry encoding and interpolation model
* an extension model in support of application profiles
* conformance requirements and test cases

The adopted OpenGIS KML 2.2 Encoding Standard (OGC KML) is available at
http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/kml/.

Biomedical Sciences and Biotechnology

Source

http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/857

Illuminating the Path: The R&D Agenda for Visual Analytics

Jess Hemerly — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:23:12 -0800

Description

From the website:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security chartered the National Visualization and Analytics Center (NVAC™) in 2004 with the goal of helping to counter future terrorist attacks in the U.S. and around the globe. A major objective for NVAC is to define a five-year research and development agenda for visual analytics to address the most pressing needs in R&D to facilitate advanced analytical insight.
Under the leadership of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and top researchers on the R&D Agenda Panel, a Research and Development Agenda for visual analytics was developed to define the directions and priorities for future research and development programs focused on visual analytics tools. This R&D Agenda, Illuminating the Path, provides a coordinated technical vision for government and industrial investments, and ensures that a continued stream of technology and tools enter the hands of analysts and emergency responders.

The R&D Agenda presents recommendations to advance the state of the art in the major visual analytics research areas:

The science of analytical reasoning

Visual representations and interaction techniques

Data representations and transformations

Production, presentation, and dissemination.

The R&D Agenda also includes recommendations to accelerate the ability to move the most promising research into practice and set the stage for an enduring visual analytics research community through a combination of education and research collaboration.

Source

National Visualization and Analytics Center (2005). Illuminating the Path: The Research and Development Agenda for Visual Analytics.” Richland, WA: U.S. Department of Energy, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory