NCAR's Research Data Archive featured on UCARConnect 2

The November 2016 issue of UCARConnect, Data: The Currency of Science is now live.  The NCAR RDA is proud to have contributed to this issue.

RDA Data Specialist, Grace Peng, wrote Big Data, Big Planet

We’re experiencing a big data explosion both in cultural awareness and in penetration into many aspects of everyday life. How did we get here? What role do weather and climate play in our data moment?

Big data is characterized by its "Vs": Volume, Variety and Velocity. Data volume is “big” if it is too large to reside on or be processed with a personal computer.

Did you know that even in the pre-computer era, weather data was the original big data use case? It’s most useful when we have a lot of it and we need the data in real-time. Furthermore, we use a large variety of physical measurements to characterize the state of the atmosphere and ocean.

RDA manager, Steve Worley, and former intern, Sophie Hou, speak about the history of the RDA and scientific data in general in this video.

Sophie Hou has joined NCAR permanently as our new Data Curation & Stewardship Coordinator. Read her career profile about what led her to this exciting career.

UCARConnect is a (roughly) bimonthly publication of UCAR aimed at science enthusiasts of all ages, including K-12 students and teachers.