Annual and final report of the EU project Information System for the ESF/QUEEN Programme (QUEEN/PANGAEA), MAS3-CT98-0185
Hannes Grobe · Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar-und Meeresforschung (Alfred-Wegener-Institut) · 2001
The QUEEN/PANGAEA project compiled recent and quaternary environmental data from a range of international and national projects in the Eurasian Arctic.More than 1000 data sets including metainformation and references were imported to the information system PANGAEA.The first data library related to the quaternary environment of the Arctic is now available to the public through the Internet (http://www.pangaea.de/Projects/QUEEN).The data sets are from all earth systems (atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, kryosphere) and allow new insights into the causes, impacts, and feedback mechanisms which determined the Arctic climate system during the younger geological history, and still do today.Technically the system is operated by the AWI and MARUM institutes; both are committed to run the system on a long-term basis.The system is still in use by running and future projects, new data are imported every day.Different clients have been developed to allow user friendly and flexible access to the data.The system is a further step towards a standard in archiving geological and environmental data and thus will help to investigate scientific data more efficiently.The organization of information in a relational system with different access clients on the Internet and the opportunity to investigate a comprehensive data inventory in detail, provide a new and unique opportunity for state of the art data management in scientific projects.visualization of glacier and ice sheet-related observations, in using a geographical information system (GISICE).Through this project (QUEEN/PANGAEA), the EU has provided financial support for the establishment of a technical infrastructure to archive and exchange data from the Arctic.Due to the complexity of environmental research and the variety and amount of different parameters, the database established through this relatively small project can not be more than a show case.Anyhow this project is able to demonstrate the power of a common information system for the long term archiving of data, for an easy exchange of information through the Internet and the value of a consistent data inventory for the interpretation and visualization of comprehensive data collections.This might also help increase the motivation of scientists to establish common data management in future projects.