A Beta Version of the GIS-Enabled NASA Surface meteorology and Solar Energy (SSE) Web Site With Expanded Data Accessibility and Analysis Functionality for Renewable Energy and Other Applications

Abstract:

The NASA LaRC Atmospheric Science Data Center has deployed it’s beta version of an existing geophysical parameter website employing off the shelf Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. The revitalized web portal is entitled the “Surface meteorological and Solar Energy” (SSE - https://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/sse/) and has been supporting an estimated 175,000 users with baseline solar and meteorological parameters as well as calculated parameters that enable feasibility studies for a wide range of renewable energy systems, particularly those systems featuring solar energy technologies. The GIS tools enable, generate and store climatological averages using spatial queries and calculations (by parameter for the globe) in a spatial database resulting in greater accessibility by government agencies, industry and individuals. The data parameters are produced from NASA science projects and reformulated specifically for the renewable energy industry and other applications. This first version includes: 1) processed and reformulated set of baseline data parameters that are consistent with Esri and open GIS tools, 2) development of a limited set of Python based functions to compute additional parameters “on-the-fly” from the baseline data products, 3) updated the current web sites to enable web-based displays of these parameters for plotting and analysis and 4) provided for the output of data parameters in geoTiff, ASCII and .netCDF data formats. The beta version is being actively reviewed through interaction with a group of collaborators from government and industry in order to test web site usability, display tools and features, and output data formats. This presentation provides an overview of this project and the current version of the new SSE-GIS web capabilities through to the end usage. This project supports cross agency and cross organization interoperability and access to NASA SSE data products and OGC compliant web services and aims also to provide mobile platform support.