The National Climate Centre of the Bureau of Meteorology, Australia has been working for some 3 years developing an interactive Web-based system for access to the national climate computer archive. The system is intended to provide a facility for those outside the Bureau to submit a request for information directly to the database and obtain the result with as little staff intervention as is possible. The plan is that a client will be able to select from a set of standard output products and select the sites, elements and dates required. If necessary The Climate Zone (TCZ) will provide a quote of the cost and link to an automatic charging system for payment. The client will then either run the job directly over the web or, if it is too large or complex, send details of the request to the Climate Data Service offices for supply.
Implementation of the external system will be in a moderate way with only one or two applications at first; more applications will be added as they are completed, thus extending the facility iteratively. The initial site finder module contains information about available sites and the computer archive holdings of different elements for each site, providing metadata about the best source of data to satisfy queries.
TCZ will provide climate products in 3 formats - web page reports, data files and graphs. Results can be delivered immediately to the client or as a delayed reply via email if the result is large. Some products are pre-created flat files, some are dynamic and created 'on the fly' for that particular request. A few products such as the latest SOI or long term climate averages for the major towns will always be available as free products.
The Climate Zone uses Oracle Web Server technologies in association with database back-ends to deliver dynamic interactive content to the web. Queries, searches and data extractions can all be performed via the web interface. The code has mainly been implemented in PL/SQL using the PL/SQL web cartridge of the Oracle web server.
Some java produced web pages have also been created to complement technological limitations in PL/SQL dynamic web pages. (Primarily where system calls have been required then the java cartridge of the Oracle Web Server has been used. )
We currently use OWS2.1 as the Oracle Web Server for our intranet system, but envisage using Oracle Application Server v4.0.7 or higher for the external public climate zone when it becomes available later in 1999.
There are still many technical questions to be answered about the viability of the kind of system we are trying to develop. This includes the best method of charging for products when required and how to map site search results. Examples of use of the system will be demonstrated.
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