Notes/Recommendations/Issues
Notes from the ASF User Working Group Meeting, May 18-19, 1998
Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
June 8, 1998
These notes are organized as follows:
* Minutes and White Paper update
* Assessment and Recommendations, by Ron Kwok (for your information)
* Recommendations (formal)
* Action Items
* Other Issues
* Science Plan
* Committees?
* Charter
* E-mail Lists
* Next Meeting
Please send comments on any of these items to the co-chairpeople.
We need to come up with a final set of recommendations and action items.
Thanks,
- Harry and Leslie
Minutes and White Paper update
______________________________
The minutes of the meeting were written up by Donna Sandberg,
and I have posted the DRAFT version on the ASF UWG web site:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ASFUWG
You may send changes to me and I will update the minutes.
I will post the final version in two weeks.
The white paper is currently being assembled at ASF.
You will have a chance to review it before a final version is issued.
Assessment and Recommendations - R. Kwok
______________________________
The overarching goal of the facility is to deliver data products to the
science community. Based on this premise, I summarize my view of the
current situation at ASF based on the presentations during the ASFUWG
and my experience in with dealing with the facility:
1. Data Delivery and Data Quality - It seems that the users who use only
ERS-1/2 image products are relatively happy with the service provided
by ASF. There is general agreement that once the dataframes are in the
catalog, the time between data order and delivery is quite short.
Those who use RADARSAT data are still waiting for geometrically and
radiometrically calibrated products. CCSD products used primarily for
interferometric data analysis are still plagued by many data defects.
2. Data Inventory/Archive - ASF does not seem to have an accurate
inventory of ASF data resident at other ground stations and data within
its archive. It is very difficult for a user to understand what has
been successfully acquired and what is available for distribution. It
is also very difficult to browse the coverage of current and historical
datasets available within the facility. This is not conducive to the
use of SAR data as ancillary datasets for looking at past records for
Earth Science Studies. There also seem to be inconsistencies in the
database due to various framing and scanning issues in the past. It is
also apparent that ASF recognizes this shortcoming of the system and
is implementing plans to better track the datasets at the facility.
3. Management - The steps taken to re-organize the management structure
of the facility should be applauded. The groups within the facility
should work together in solving the day-to-day problems. The charter
of separate management entities should not appear as political
boundaries that limit cross-group communications and the problem
solving capabilities of the facility. The personnel should be
encouraged to make decisions and solve problems independently.
My Recommendations are as follows:
1. ASF should work toward creating an accuracte archive of the datasets
within and external to the facility. Capabilities to determine and
browse temporal and spatial coverages of this archive should be
provided to encourage users of current and historical data.
2. The importance of the McMurdo datasets (especially the ERS tandem
data for interferometric analysis) for Antarctic research should be
recognized. An understanding of how to ensure reliable reception of
the downlink at McMurdo and the orderly shipment of this dataset to
ASF should be achieved.
3. There should be a more efficient engineering process between ASF and
JPL to ensure the data quality of ASF products before distribution.
The establishment of the Data Quality Working Group is a positive step
in that direction.
4. ASF should work to correct the inconsistencies in the database.
5. The tracking procedures that the facility is implementing seem
rather ad hoc. At some point in the near future, the design of the
tracking procedures (between data acquistion requests and delivery)
should be considered in the context of the entire system. It is not
clear the currrent procedures are the most efficient. An end-to-end
system engineering approach should be taken.
6. The production of CCSD data products from ERS, RADARSAT and JERS
should be considered a priority. ASF is the only source of
interferometric quality data from these sensors for US investigators
who do not have access to ESA data. The expected science return from
this dataset is very high, especially the ERS tandem phase data from
early 1996.
Recommendations (formal)
________________________
I have tried to come up with a format for presenting formal recommendations.
Each recommendation should be numbered for ease of reference. We could use
1.1, 1.2, 1.3, ... for the recommendations from the first meeting;
2.1, 2.2, 2.3, ... for the recommendations from the second meeting, etc.
I have tried to incorporate Ron's ideas (above) and Eric's suggestions,
and general discussion points from the meeting. These (below) are the
starting point for our formal recommendations to ASF... further discussion
and iteration is in order.
Item:
Users need an inventory of all data at ASF and foreign ground stations.
Current status:
Signal data received at ASF is written to tape. The tape must be scanned
in order for the data to be visible in the catalog. ASF is keeping up
with scanning newly acquired signal tapes, but there are 3 sources of
invisible data:
1. Backlog of old signal tapes acquired at ASF that have not been scanned.
2. McMurdo tapes shipped to ASF that have not been scanned.
3. Data at foreign ground stations that is due to be shipped to ASF.
Recommendations:
McMurdo data: Ron and Eric will give ASF a list of revs that are good
for interferometry. These data should be scanned in the next two months
in order to be available to the funded PIs from the Antarctic NRA.
Eric has agreed to be the point of contact for this endeavor.
Foreign station data: ASF knows that 1100 datatakes are waiting at
foreign ground stations, mainly Gatineau and Prince Albert, for shipment
to ASF. Greta (Reynolds) was able to create a list of these datatakes,
which she gave to Prasad. ASF should post this list on their web site
and send e-mail notification to all users, who can then identify the
most important of these datatakes and send that information back to ASF.
This will allow ASF to prioritize data retrieval from foreign stations.
Other invisible data: ASF should formulate a plan for scanning or
making an inventory of all other invisible data.
Item:
Some ADRO investigators have been waiting a long time for data from
foreign ground stations.
Current status:
See above. Investigators do not know if their requested data have been
acquired. Some data at foreign ground stations dates from January 1997.
Recommendations:
See above. After the datatake list is posted, users should inform ASF
of the most important data. ASF should collect this information and submit
a request to CSA that includes at least one or two items for each PI.
Providing a few scenes to each PI would be a huge step forward which
would put the pressure on the PIs rather than on ASF.
Item:
Radarsat data need to be available in raw (CCSD) format.
Current status:
CCSD Radarsat data cannot be ordered (not available as a product),
hence investigators cannot do SAR interferometry, although they were
funded by NASA to do so.
Recommendations:
JPL/ASFD should modify the processor in order to make CCSD data available.
Item:
There is no solid order-tracking system by which a user (or User Services)
can monitor Data Acquisition Requests (DARs) and actual acquisitions.
Current status:
User Services can track orders "manually" -- this takes a lot of time.
Some of the necessary information has to come from foreign ground stations.
Apparently for RAMP, ASF was able to generate lists of data that had been
submitted, scheduled, and acquired.
Recommendations:
We had a discussion about this, with some differing views.
One course of action would be to recommend an "end-to-end system
engineering approach" to designing an order tracking system.
The major concern is that this would be a difficult and expensive
process, taking resources away from other activities. What are the
alternatives? What information do users actually need? Here is a
possible list:
* confirmation that DAR has been received
* notification that DAR has been scheduled
* notification if DAR is cancelled
* notification that data have been acquired
* notification when the data arrive at ASF and can be ordered
Can the same procedures applied for RAMP be used for other DARs?
Item:
After April 1, 1998, Radarsat data from Tromso began arriving on DLTs,
which ASF cannot read.
Current status:
There is no plan to implement the capability to read DLTs.
Recommendations:
Tromso data are important for the RGPS project. The RGPS Science
Working Group made the following recommendation after their meeting
on February 18-19:
-Tromso/DLT problem: The capability to ingest DLT data from Tromso does
not exist. A plan to address this issue based on the requirements of
the RGPS should be put in place by ASF/ASFD.
We (ASFUWG) second this recommendation.
Item:
A new receiving station is planned (approved? constructed?) on Svalbard
for AM-1 data. Paul Ondrus suggested that it could be made compatible
for reception of SAR data.
Current status:
The eastern Arctic is covered by the Tromso station. The Svalbard
station is farther north (better for Arctic coverage) and would be
more under U.S. influence (perhaps avoiding problems such as DLT).
Recommendations:
We recommend that NASA negotiate an agreement with CSA/RSI for
reception of SAR data at the Svalbard receiving station.
Final note: We need to prioritize these and any other recommendations.
Action Items
____________
Ben suggests:
* Action items should have due dates.
* Somebody should be assigned to monitor the action items, to receive
the responses, and to disseminate the information around in a suitable
fashion to the UWG and other folks. Ben volunteered to do this!
Thanks Ben!
Here are some action items ... corrections are welcome.
Some of these items correspond to the recommendations in the previous section.
Maybe that's redundant.
* Jim Conner of the ASF USO will set up user accounts for all ASFUWG members.
* Marc Forbes (ASF) will follow up on the question of reliability
of McMurdo data and reliability of data from foreign ground stations.
* Greta Reynolds, Marc Forbes, and Jim Conner will find out how many PIs
are waiting for the invisible 1100 revs sitting at Gatineau and find out
as much as possible about invisible data.
* Greta Reynolds, Marc Forbes, and Jim Conner will find out if there are
any PIs who have not received any data or who have only received a sample.
* Jim Conner will inform PIs who have data sitting at foreign ground
stations that their data are there.
* Nettie LaBelle-Hamer will investigate the ECS SAR order-tracking software.
* Cheryl Bertoia will assist Jason Williams regarding DQWG issues and become
a member of the ASF DQWG. She or a representative will be teleconferenced
in to DQWG meetings.
* The ASF USO will investigate RSI educational discount policy which allows
a cost of $500 per image, and will communicate this to the user community.
* Verne told us that the whole earth has been mapped by Radarsat standard
beam 2, and that these data are archived and available from CSA.
Verne -- how do users search and access these data?
* Verne - Please inform the UWG when a new Director of ASF has been chosen.
Other Issues
____________
I'm concerned about the recent revelation that ASF/NASA does not have
agreements with CSA and ESA for Radarsat-2 and Envisat-1. What about
ALOS? When should that MOU be negotiated? And ADEOS-II? Perhaps
Prasad and Verne can find out and take appropriate action, or hand over
responsibility to the soon-to-be-chosen Director. Let's have an update
at the next meeting, including status of MOU negotiations for Envisat-1
and Radarsat-2.
We had two "allocation" discussions. One involved allocation of processing
resources among the different classes of users: NIC, NOAA, cal/val,
Arctic Snapshot, RAMP, ADRO, Forest Mapping, and other ASF. Is the
processing capacity adequate? This depends on the turnaround time that
each class of user expects. Should we establish minimum (target) turnaround
times for each class? When do machines need to be upgraded or replaced?
I don't recall that we arrived at any concrete recommendations.
The other allocation discussion was how to get our (U.S.) full allocation
of 1519 minutes of Radarsat data per cycle. If we submit 1519 minutes,
there will be some cancellations and we will get less than 1519. If we
submit more than 1519 we run the risk of going over, which is costly.
CSA cannot fill in requests from a prioritized list, to bring us up to
1519 minutes. Should we be happy with 90% (or whatever it is, typically)
success in acquiring our allocation?
We had some discussion about "metrics" -- measures or statistics by which
to gauge the performance of ASF. Some figures and charts were presented
at the meeting containing the number of images processed and delivered.
What statisitics should ASF be compiling? How should we interpret these
numbers to discern improvement or deterioration in ASF service?
There was a suggestion to document the "most frequently asked" questions
(and answers!) on the ASF web site. Does this need elaboration or follow-up?
Should ASF organize a Special Session at the Fall AGU meeting?
Is it too late for that already?
There was a suggestion that User Services needs a set of uniform procedures
or protocol for dealing with users. I think there was concern that the
"vocal" users who communicate frequently with User Services are getting
what they need, while other less aggressive users, who (perhaps) expect
the data to be dropped in their laps, are not getting the same service.
Do we need to follow up on this idea?
JPL/ASFD are working on correcting the doppler/PRF problem (which leads
to along-track geolocation errors of ~4 km) in some Radarsat beams.
This fix is very important to RAMP and RGPS. Someone (Ron, Ben?) should
keep abreast of progress.
Jason is working on calibration of Radarsat ScanSAR Wide B.
He estimated it would be done by June 30. This is also very important
for RGPS, and perhaps other users. Let's check on the status of this
work in July.
ASF will be migrating all signal data to a level 0 archive over the next
couple of years. Tom Bicknell went over the reasons. This presents
opportunities for collecting information about all the data, since every
tape must be scanned. Along with creating level 0 products, one could also:
- do some pre-processing and store parameters for faster future processing
- obtain information about the quality of the data
- create browse images
We should explore the cost/benefit of these opportunities and assess
their utility for the user community. Maybe we could ask Tom Bicknell
or Dave Nichols for a short report (at the next meeting) on the costs
associated with particular processing options.
We were asked to make recommendations on software tools development.
For example, it was mentioned that a land mask would be useful.
Note that there is a list of Software Tools at the end of the viewgraph
booklet that was distributed at the meeting.
According to the letter from Prasad and Verne of March 4, in which we were
invited to be members of the ASF UWG, one of the actions we were supposed
to take at the first meeting was appointing someone to the EOSDIS Advisory
Panel. We did not do this. I have written to the chairman of the panel
asking for more information, such as the duties of the panel and the
schedule of meetings. I have not heard back yet. The meetings are probably
on the east coast; therefore I would hope for a volunteer who lives back east.
"The Earth Observer" is published by the EOS Project Science Office
at Goddard. It contains articles such as "Land Processes DAAC Science
Advisory Panel Meeting" and other fascinating Announcements.
I have written to the editors and offered to write a short article
about the first meeting of the newly created ASF UWG. This might be
a good forum for recruiting contributors to the Science Plan.
Member names and e-mail addresses are now posted on the ASFUWG web site
(http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ASFUWG).
Perhaps I should also include phone numbers, and research areas?
Science Plan
____________
These are my preliminary thoughts on the steps toward a Science Plan.
* Identify the audience and the scope
* Set a timetable
* Make an outline
* Assign section leaders
* Leaders find contributors and have them write parts
* Collect sections and organize a draft
* Review
* Revise
* Distribute
I suppose the audience should be the whole Earth Science community,
as well as NASA administrators. As for a timetable, let's shoot for
having section leaders bring (or send) their sections to the next meeting
at the end of September. I will send out another note about the Science
Plan (with strawman outline) in the near future.
Committees?
___________
Perhaps the ASFUWG should have committees, each consisting of a few people,
for the purpose of making recommendations and keeping up with certain topics.
Here are some possible committees:
Technology - Deal with computer/processing issues
Data Quality - Be part of the DQWG and deal with cal/val issues
Data Access - Keep up with developments on creating a full inventory of data
User Interface - Make recommendations regarding the DAR and V0/IMS interfaces
Software Tools - Recommend software tools development
Level 0 - Investigate opportunities arising from level 0 migration
Alternatively, we could simply identify issues that need to be dealt with,
and ask for a few volunteers to address each issue. Maybe this less-formal
approach makes more sense than committees.
Charter
_______
At the meeting, we discussed the charter of the UWG and came up with
this wording:
"Our mission is to promote the advancement of science and operational
environmental monitoring based on SAR. We make recommendations to
ASF and NASA based on the scientific needs of the user community.
We work to ensure that ASF management and operations fulfill current
and future needs."
Allow me to suggest this minor re-wording:
"Our mission is to promote the advancement of science and operational
environmental monitoring based on synthetic aperture radar. We are
charged to make recommendations to ASF and NASA based on the current
and future needs of the user community. We work to ensure that ASF
management and operations fulfill those needs."
Do we need to vote on adopting a charter?
E-mail Lists
____________
Donna has set up two e-mail lists for us.
The first list
asfuwg@juneau.gi.alaska.edu
contains UWG members plus Donna:
Cheryl Bertoia Cheryl_Bertoia@natice.noaa.gov National Ice Center
Bruce Chapman bruce.chapman@jpl.nasa.gov JPL
Mark R. Drinkwater mrd@pacific.jpl.nasa.gov JPL
Mark Fahnestock mark@atmos.umd.edu University of Maryland
Ben Holt ben@pacific.jpl.nasa.gov JPL
Bryan Isacks bli1@cornell.edu Cornell
Kenneth Jezek jezek@iceberg.mps.ohio-state.edu Ohio State U.
Ronald Kwok ronald.kwok@jpl.nasa.gov JPL
Antony Liu liu@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov NASA/GSFC
Gary J. Minden gminden@ittc.ukans.edu University of Kansas
Leslie Morrissey lmorriss@nature.snr.uvm.edu University of Vermont
Peter Mouginis-Mark pmm@kahana.pgd.hawaii.edu Hawaii Inst. Geophysics
William Pichel wpichel@nesdis.noaa.gov NOAA/NESDIS
Keith Raney keith.raney@jhuapl.edu Johns Hopkins
K. Jon Ranson jon.ranson@gsfc.nasa.gov GSFC
Eric Rignot eric@adelie.jpl.nasa.gov JPL
Harry Stern harry@apl.washington.edu U. of Washington
Paris Vachon Paris.Vachon@CCRS.NRCan.gc.ca CCRS/EMR
Howard Zebker zebker@jakey.stanford.edu Stanford University
Donna Sandberg donna@gi.alaska.edu ASF
The second list
asfuwg.plus@juneau.gi.alaska.edu
contains all of the above people, plus the following people:
Prasad Gogineni sgoginen@hq.nasa.gov NASA HQ
Vanessa Griffin vgriffin@pop100.gsfc.nasa.gov GSFC
Verne Kaupp vkaupp@images.alaska.edu ASF
Darryl Lakins dlakins@pop500.gsfc.nasa.gov GSFC
David Nichols david.a.nichols@jpl.nasa.gov JPL
Paul Ondrus pondrus@pop500.gsfc.nasa.gov GSFC
Earnest Paylor epaylor@mail.hq.nasa.gov NASA HQ
James Conner james@santa.asf.alaska.edu ASF
Craig Lingle clingle@images.alaska.edu ASF
Tom Bicknell thomas.j.bicknell@jpl.nasa.gov JPL
Dave Cuddy david.cuddy@jpl.nasa.gov JPL
Ken McDonald ken.mcdonald@gsfc.nasa.gov GSFC
Next Meeting
____________
Verne suggested that the UWG should meet every September and March.
The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Monday-Wednesday
September 28-30 at the Polar Science Center in Seattle. We could
start on the afternoon of the 28th to allow people to travel on Monday
morning. Is this helpful, or would you just as soon travel on the
day before the meeting? We would finish no later than mid-day on
Wednesday with a Monday afternoon start, or finish Tuesday evening with
a Monday morning start.
Let us know if these dates/times work for you.
Also, think about topics on which you want updates or discussion.
