Proposed Data Management and Stewardship Improvements to the NDE Project in support of the NPP Research to Operations Transition Process

The efficiency of the research to operations process associated with the NPOESS Data Exploitation (NDE) project has increased in 2010 due to the implementation of data management techniques and standards. Used to process NPOESS Preparatory Program (NPP) operational satellite data at NOAA, NDE requires a collaborative effort between the Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) algorithm developers, NDE developers, Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution OSDPD staff and archive personnel to effectively transition level 1 (pre-processed) and level 2 data to an operational product. Such processing necessitates efficient data management and stewardship techniques which for NDE is accomplished by standardizing the data formats across all products. This includes the implementation of a CF-compliant file-level metadata template, an output file naming convention, data compression guidelines and a NetCDF4 data output format standard. These standards and guidelines are all specifically engineered to improve communication issues between all stakeholders that are incurred when an algorithm and resulting products are moved into the operational environment. Additional conventions that serve to streamline the research to operations transition for NDE products will be addressed in future months.