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A new database has been created to help track the effects of climate change on the North Pole.
Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio have developed a database, dubbed ArcCI (or Arctic CyberInfrastructure), which groups together thousands of images taken over the years spent in the Arctic Ocean .
They said this database would help scientists and the world to understand the physical changes that were occurring in the region, including the loss of ice. It is hoped that the Web repository will allow researchers to spend more time analyzing information rather than just collecting and processing data.
"It's about helping scientists to spend more time on science," said Professor Alberto Mestas-Nuñez, one of two researchers at the University of Texas at the University of Texas. San Antonio, working on the data mining module on demand.
"At present, there is no place on the Internet that offers all these datasets, but also an algorithm that allows [extraction of] information, "added Mestas. Most of the time scientists spend time getting data and preparing it. In general, about 80% prepare the data and 20% prepare the scientific knowledge. We want to break this paradigm. "
The system will allow scientists to extract information on various properties of ice, including submerged ice, ice concentration, melting ponds or ice edge, the boundary between an ice zone and the sea. opened.
The original idea of the ArcCI database came from Professor Hongjie Xie, the lead project researcher at UTSA and a professor in the department of geological sciences of the university. Big Data analytics and dashboards have been used in many areas, but this has not yet been applied to ice monitoring in the Arctic.
Xie and Xin Miao from Missouri State University started the project five years ago. The project was also funded by the National Science Foundation to develop this database using high resolution imagery obtained either on site, by satellite or by airborne surveillance.
Currently, the cloud-based system contains about one terabyte of images, but will increase in the future as new images are added. The database will also incorporate new algorithms and additional datasets as they become available.
Chaowei Yang from George Mason University, another UTSA associate researcher, is responsible for the design of the framework and the cloud interface. A beta version of ArcCI will be presented at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union to be held in Washington DC in December 2018.
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