National Academies Press: OpenBook

Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data (2001)

Chapter: Potential Conflicts in the Trunk

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Suggested Citation:"Potential Conflicts in the Trunk." National Research Council. 2001. Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10237.
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Suggested Citation:"Potential Conflicts in the Trunk." National Research Council. 2001. Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10237.
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Page 60
Suggested Citation:"Potential Conflicts in the Trunk." National Research Council. 2001. Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10237.
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Page 61
Suggested Citation:"Potential Conflicts in the Trunk." National Research Council. 2001. Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10237.
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Page 62

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WAR AND PEACE AMONG STAKEHOLDERS 59 activities (the Commercial Space Act).c Meanwhile, STDC failed to raise sufficient funds to carry out its part of the NEMO mission,d with some industry representatives concluding that a commercial market for a hyperspectral sensor could not be developed at this time without more basic research. Earth Search Sciences, Inc., assumed the prime- contractor role for NEMO in late 1999, but a firm development and launch schedule does not yet exist.e Lessons learned. Innovative technologies often require government funding to reach maturity. Hyperspectral remote sensing and data products are apparently still in the research stage and will require government investment before commercialization efforts can succeed. a <http://popo.jpl.nasa.gov/html/aviris.biblios.html>. b <http://www.onr.navy.mil/onr/newsrel/nr971212.htm>. c Letter from NASA to S.Ustin, principal investigator of the Demeter proposal, 1998. d See Space News, January 31, 2000, <http://www.space.com/php/spacenews/smembers/ sarch/sarch00/sn0131j.php>. e<http://www.earthsearch.com/technology/frame_nemo_satellite.html>. Potential Conflicts in the Trunk Confidence in the output of the trunk requires many creative minds to critique and verify each step of the transformation from raw data to finished products. Computer programs or algorithms with undetected errors are notorious for promulgating misinformation to the entire user community. Anything that makes scientific scrutiny more cumbersome or expensive increases the chances that errors will not be detected in a timely manner. For the shared-use information systems under discussion, such misinformation would be an intolerable outcome. Validating data through repeated measurements or cross-checking with other independent sources turns scientific data into information (see Box 1.1). The calibration and validation steps are also necessary for detecting errors in the algorithms for processing data (see Example 5.5) or for improving the efficiency of algorithm development. Once the instrument is deployed, routine cross-checks with other instruments are essential for discovering errors, changes in instrument behavior, or scientific surprises (see Example 5.6).

WAR AND PEACE AMONG STAKEHOLDERS 60 EXAMPLE 5.5 OCEAN TOPOGRAPHY EXPERIMENT (TOPEX) The TOPEX/Poseidon satellite was launched in 1992 to measure global sea level, monitor global ocean circulation, and improve global climate predictions.a Both NASA and its partner, the French Space Agency, CNES, process and distribute data to scientists. To facilitate processing, the partners agreed to exchange data and technical information on a full and open basis from the very beginning. This open data policy played a critical role in identifying a significant error early in the mission-an algorithm error that gave rise to a false global sea level rise estimateb with alarming implications regarding the effects of global warming. If not for the open communication among NASA and CNES engineers and science users, this mistake would have probably been resolved much later. Moreover, the spirit of collaboration resulted in many other joint projects, including the continuous improvement of algorithms, models, and processing methods. The history of access to altimetry data from the European Space Agency (ESA) missions ERS-1 and -2 is very different. Under the assumption that the data had commercial value, ESA restricted access to members of the ERS science team. To become a member of this team scientists had to submit a formal research proposal (a no-cost proposal if not from a European Union country) to ESA requesting and justifying access to the data stream. If the proposal was accepted, the scientist had to sign a formal agreement listing all of the people by name who would be permitted access to the data. In an academic institution the turnover is so great that this restriction is difficult to satisfy. The restrictions and attendant bureaucracy, as well as technical problems with ERS-1, discouraged many scientists from attempting to use the data.c As a result, the ERS altimetry product has not been used as widely as the TOPEX/ Poseidon product. In response to pressure from altimetry scientists and the recognition that altimetry data were not in fact commercially valuable, ESA streamlined its approval process.d However, ESA still requires scientists to describe their research activity and justify their need for the data. Lessons learned. Because TOPEX/Poseidon data were available on a full and open basis, a processing error was discovered early, saving the operating agencies and science users considerable time, frustration, and expense. a For a brief review and history, see C.Wunsch and D.Stammer, 1998, Satellite altimetry, the marine geoid, and the oceanic general circulation. Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Science, v. 26, p. 219–253.

WAR AND PEACE AMONG STAKEHOLDERS 61 b L.Fu, NASA project scientist for TOPEX/Poseidon, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, personal communication, September 1999. c C.Wunsch, MIT, personal communication, June 11, 2001. d Applicants are generally approved to obtain ERS data in one month; access to TOPEX/ Poseidon data is usually granted within 24 hours after filling out the form on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Web site. See <http://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/order/ order_topex.html> and <http://www-aviso.cnes.fr:8090/HTML./information/frames/ general/produits_uk.html. EXAMPLE 5.6 ANTARCTIC OZONE HOLE A dramatic loss of ozone in the lower stratosphere over Antarctica was first noticed in the 1980s by a research group from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) that was monitoring the atmosphere using a network of ground-based instruments.a The drop in ozone levels was so large that at first the scientists thought their instruments were faulty, although careful checks subsequently confirmed their measurements. Meanwhile, data from NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) satellite failed to show a similar decline. The BAS results spurred NASA scientists to re-examine the TOMS data, and they found that their algorithms had been set to eliminate data with extremely low ozone levels.b NASA had been disregarding valid evidence for years. The reanalyzed TOMS data confirmed that the ozone loss first observed by the BAS was real and occurred over most of the Antarctic continent. Lesson learned. Discoveries in environmental science may go undetected, sometimes for many years, simply because they are unexpected. The only safeguard is constant vigilance and scrutiny of the data and methods for analyzing them by as many scientists as possible. For this reason, environmental scientists rely on full and open access to all environmental data upon which scientific inferences are based. a G.Carver, 1998, The Ozone Hole Tour. Part I: The History Behind the Ozone Hole. University of Cambridge, <http://www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk/tour/part1.html> (April 24 2001). b USGCRP, 1999, Global Change Science Requirements for Long-Term Archiving, Report from a workshop, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, October 28–30, 1998, p. 12–13. Policies of full and open access maximize the quantity and credibility of data flowing to the trunk. However, under some circumstances, restricted data that have undergone a scientific audit offer a second best source of information (see Box 4.1). For this information to

WAR AND PEACE AMONG STAKEHOLDERS 62 be useful in scientific core products, commercial vendors must be willing to disclose enough details to establish the credibility of their sources, quality assurance, and algorithms, without permitting a competitor from replicating their commercially valuable products. As long as the data are subject to scientific audit, limited disclosure may be good enough for public purposes (see Example 5.7), though limitations of any kind reduce the opportunities for independent innovative exploitation of the data or improvement in observing technique. EXAMPLE 5.7 COMMERCIAL HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGERY Global and regional land cover studies and agricultural assessments rely on medium- and low-resolution (30 m to 1 km) satellite images to provide information on vegetation conditions in ecosystems and to infer parameters such as forest biomass. Such inferences can be improved by using high-resolution Images from intelligence or commercial satellites.a Because processing high resolution data on a global or regional basis is prohibitively expensive, scientists may prefer to use high-resolution data from specific locations (e.g., where complementary ground-based observations exist) to calibrate and validate on a sample basis inferences from lower-resolution data that has continuous coverage. One-meter-resolution IKONOS data, which are collected by Space Imaging, Inc., are an additional confirmatory source of data for an audit of the low- to medium-resolution systems scientists depend upon. Under NASA's Scientific Data Purchase Program,b IKONOS data have been used to evaluate the test sites used to validate a variety of satellite sensors, including Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on Terra.c Because the amount of data requested was small and the application had no commercial value, Space Imaging, Inc., provided complete access to the relevant data to participating researchers. Similar information is available from commercial airborne photogrammetry surveys. In this case, the choice of which technique to use to calibrate and validate the low- and medium-resolution sensors (ground observations, aircraft measurements, or high-resolution satellite measurements) is a matter of relative cost to the user. Lessons learned. If the information content of commercial or declassified data is well understood, the data can be very useful for scientific purposes. To exploit these data, it may be necessary to use them in limited areas because of high price or confidentiality.

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Reliable collections of science-based environmental information are vital for many groups of users and for a number of purposes. For example, electric utility companies predict demand during heat waves, structural engineers design buildings to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes, water managers monitor each winter's snow pack, and farmers plant and harvest crops based on daily weather predictions. Understanding the impact of human activities on climate, water, ecosystems, and species diversity, and assessing how natural systems may respond in the future are becoming increasingly important for public policy decisions.

Environmental information systems gather factual information, transform it into information products, and distribute the products to users. Typical uses of the information require long-term consistency; hence the operation of the information system requires a long-term commitment from an institution, agency, or corporation. The need to keep costs down provides a strong motivation for creating multipurpose information systems that satisfy scientific, commercial and operational requirements, rather than systems that address narrow objectives. Resolving Conflicts Arising from the Privatization of Environmental Data focuses on such shared systems.

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