After running models and generating copious amounts of data for their contribution to the IPCC AR4 assessment report, the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) had a problem. What was the best way to offer data access to the IPCC working group researchers, while simplifying the complex hierarchy of data that naturally evolved as part of running the experiments? Part of the solution was to partner with Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory (PMEL) to create a data portal which would harness the Live Access Server (LAS) technology to aid in data analysis and visualization. The LAS is a highly configurable web server that is designed to provide flexible access to geo-referenced scientific data, and allows browsing, visualizing and comparisons of data on the fly. The challenge for LAS was how to simplify the user access to the complicated hierarchy of data created by the GFDL IPCC model experiments. At the same time, because volume of experiments was so high, another challenge was finding a way to automate LAS configuration to support any combination of available experiments from the data portal.

In this presentation, we will be discussing the Live Access server and the role it plays in the data portal at the GFDL. As mentioned, the data portal at GFDL is being used to disseminate their model data contributions in support of the IPCC AR4 assessment report. We will take a look at some of the typical research questions an IPCC WG2 scientist would ask and demonstrate how such questions can be answered using the Live Access Server. In addition, we will show how we used the Live Access Server technology in conjunction with the Curator database project to ease the complexity of the Data Portal data hierarchy, both in terms of end user access as well as for potential installers of LAS.