The CHARMe project is preparing to launch its system for collecting and sharing annotations associated with climate datasets. Partners from the EU-funded project will meet at ECMWF from 9 to 11 December for their final workshop and the official product launch.
Commentary metadata
CHARMe stands for the 'Characterization of metadata to enable high-quality climate applications and services'. Different users need different kinds of supporting information, termed ‘commentary’ metadata, in order to understand climate data. The new CHARMe system gives users and producers of climate data a simple way of judging whether a dataset is fit for the user’s purpose. It lets users view or create annotations that describe how climate data has been used and what has been learned. This information can include:
- Citations that reference a particular dataset
- Results of assessments – reanalysis, quantitative error assessments
- Provenance – processing algorithms and chain data source
- External events that may affect the data – volcanic eruptions, El Nino, sensor failure
- Supplementary dataset quality information – maturity, discontinuity, updates
The CHARMe system comprises a plug-in to link datasets, CHARMe maps and the Significant Event Viewer to the central CHARMe node. The Significant Event Viewer is an interactive, web-based application developed at ECMWF. This tool will help a user to study possible causes of variability, shifts and drifts apparent in the climate product, and to become more familiar with the variety of observations that feed into the climate reanalysis. Categories of external events include:
- Climate (hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, El-Niño index)
- Software (software cycle updates)
- Operational (satellite or instrument failure, operational changes to satellite orbit calculations)
- Data/Observing system (how the data was obtained)
ECMWF will implement the plug-in on its climate reanalysis dataset and Observation Feedback Archive, so that users will be able to provide annotations to help other users.
Both the event viewer and the plug-in will go public on the ECMWF Web Applications Server (apps.ecmwf.int) for free use by the end of December.
What’s next for CHARMe?
ECMWF is hosting this month’s meeting to mark the end of the CHARMe project, but this is just the beginning for the new system: Airbus Defence and Space is already extending the concept developed in the project for use in Copernicus quality control. ECMWF will also use the CHARMe system for Copernicus, especially the Climate Change Service.
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