Purpose
The polar research community maintains numerous observing systems that collect observations of essential polar variables. The Polar Observing Asset working group (POAwg) provides technical guidance for sharing information about observing activities. The POAwg promotes interoperability toward a comprehensive perspective of observing activities and clarifies solutions for the deployment of interoperable, observing-related metadata catalogs. This information can then help strengthen observing systems, create knowledge maps that link observations to societal needs, and measure capacity for assessing environmental conditions.
Challenges
The diverse and distributed nature of observing systems in polar regions presents a fundamental challenge for assessment, planning, integration, and synthesis. Most polar inventories and portals are limited in scope, and only a fraction of them share content through machine-readable access using established metadata standards. The resulting patchwork limits capacities to comprehensively visualize, assess, plan, or manage observing activities.
In addition, individual observing systems typically develop custom metadata structures when cataloging observing activities and infrastructure. This results in duplicated time and effort, and limits their ability to showcase efforts, contribute to synthesis efforts, or otherwise have their data be more fully utilized. Indeed, many networks would prefer to simply adopt community-based approaches to create, populate, expand, deploy, or share their catalogs.
Scope
Fortunately, progress in the last decade by the polar data community – and by broader global or international efforts – has made scientific datasets more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (the FAIR Principles) through coordination and collaboration on metadata standards, controlled vocabularies, compatible transfer protocols, federated search, and more. The polar observing community can take advantage of these best practices by applying technical solutions – not to datasets and “dataset-level” metadata – but to structured information about observing assets such as:
Sites: Fixed stations, facilities, plots, moorings, observatories, stationary platforms, community-based observations, or locations wherever repeat measurements have been made.
Mobile Platforms: Buoys, vessels, aircraft, floats, gliders, UAVs, AUVs, animal-borne sensors, and other mobile platforms.
Satellites: Space-based platforms equipped with sensors and instruments that monitor, measure, and collect data on the planet’s atmosphere, oceans, land surfaces, and climate.
Projects: Research projects, studies, and other activities typically funded or coordinated by an agency or program within a defined timeframe.
Campaigns: Scientific cruises, expeditions, aircraft operations, fieldwork, and other planned routes or completed activities.
Initiatives: Coordinated ongoing efforts including organizations, networks, observing systems, and programs.
See Also
An abstract from the 2025 ICARP IV and ASSW meetings.
A “Short Statement” from the Arctic Observing Summit 2024
