This document summarizes a presentation given by Francesco Benincasa and Enric Terradellas about the WMO SDS-WAS (Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System) regional center for Northern Africa, Middle East, and Europe. The presentation describes the goals of SDS-WAS to provide dust observation, prediction, and warning systems and access to dust-related data and information through a web portal. It also provides an overview of software tools developed to access, visualize, and download dust-related data products on the portal.

1. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
2013, April 3-7
Francesco Benincasa (BSC-CNS)
Enric Terradellas (AEMET)

2. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Who I am
✔
Research Support Engineer
✔
Python/Plone developer
✔
Earth Sciences Department
✔
Air Quality
✔
Atmospheric Modeling
✔
Mineral Dust
✔
Climate Modeling
✔
Barcelona Supercomputing Center
2013, April 3-7 Francesco Benincasa 2

3. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Who we are
✔
WMO – World Meteorological Organization
✔
Aemet – Spanish Meteorological Agency
✔
BSC – Barcelona Supercomputing Center
WMO SDS-WAS
Northern Africa-Middle East-Europe (NA-ME-E)
Regional Center
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4. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
What we do
✔
SDS-WAS Sand and Dust Storm Warning
Advisory and Assessment System
✔
Lead development and implementation of a
complete atmospheric dust observation and
prediction system
✔
Provide access to information by web portal
http://sds-was.aemet.es
✔
Organize, coordinate and realize courses
about utilization of observations, analysis and
predictions
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5. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Why dust?
Impacts:
✔
Health (asthma, infections, meningitis …)
✔
Agriculture (positive and negative impacts)
✔
Air and ground transports (visibility
problems, ...)
✔
Industry (semiconductors, ...)
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6. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Examples
✔
In 2000 intercontinental
dust transport caused
300.000 premature
deaths of adults over
30 years old
✔
In 1996-97 an epidemic
of meningitis in Africa
affected 250.000
persons, 25.000 of
whom died
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7. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Software development
✔
Scientific data post-processing proceeding from
different mathematical models
visualization software system (Python)
✔
Data access/visualization (numerical results,
maps, plots …) and all materials/documentation
web portal (Plone)
Plone
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8. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
2013, April 3-7 Francesco Benincasa 8

9. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Our target
National Meteorological - Hydrological Services
broadcast of warnings of high dust load in the
atmosphere
Researchers and modelers of sand and dust
related phenomena
post processed data
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10. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Portal goals
✔
Provide information about sand and dust
✔
Both technical/scientific and general (news,
events, newsletters, ...)
✔
Data visualization (sdswas.mapviewer):
✔
Observations (georeferenced)
✔
Evaluation (georeferenced)
✔
Forecasts
✔
Numerical Results
✔
Data files download (customized Reflecto)
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11. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Products
✔
Developed by community
✗
Products.EasyNewsletter
✗
Products.PloneFormGen
✗
collective.geo.bundle
✗
Products.Reflecto (customized)
✗
...
✔
Developed by our own
✗
sdswas.skin
✗
sdswas.mapviewer
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12. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
EasyNewsletter
✔
Simple subscription
managing
✔
Automatic compilation
possibility
✔
History
✔
Multiple template
support
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13. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
PloneFormGen
✔
Subscriptions to
events organized by
the center
✔
Simple and fast
creation of any kind of
form
✔
Results exportable in
CSV/Excel format
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14. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
collective.geo
✔
Google/OpenStreet
Maps integration
✔
Add a “view” to folders
and collections objects
✔
Search objects with
coordinates property
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15. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
collective.geo.behaviour
✔
Reusable
✔
Available for all
contents
✔
Enable/disable
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16. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Reflecto
✔
File-system access
✔
Data exchange
✔
Repositories
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17. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Reflecto customization (1)
✔
Downloads statistics
(only reviewers) –
jQuery toggle
✔
Possibility to download
entire zipped folders
✔
@@download view
✔
Default for files
✔
Optional for folders
✔
Possibility of automatic
download with basic
authentication
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18. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
Reflecto customization (2)
✔
Detailed statistics
stored in monthly
csv files
✔
Reviewers can
download both csv
and graphical pdf file
(reportlab)
✔
Summary shown by
svg images created
on the fly (pygal)
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19. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
sdswas.mapviewer (1)
2013, April 3-7 Francesco Benincasa 19

20. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
sdswas.mapviewer (2)
✔
New content type - “dexterity” framework
✔
Georeferenced:
✗
collective.geo - “behavior” technology
✔
Photogallery prev-next images:
✗
Products.PloneSlimbox – jQuery fotogallery
✔
jQuery – load requested images
✔
jQuery Tools – datepicker
✗
Annual, seasonal, monthly, daily, hourly
✔
Can link to similar contents
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21. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
sdswas.mapviewer (3)
✔
Numerical results
viewer
✔
All same features as
map viewer
✔
Shows html table
instead of image
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22. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
TODO
✔
In progress
✗
Improvement of interactivity and usability
browsing plots and maps with jQuery
✗
Download of great amount of data
✔
Generation of plots on-demand via web (without
saving images on storage)
✔
HTML5?
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23. WMO SDS-WAS @ PLOG 2013
THE END
Thank you!
francesco.benincasa@bsc.es
sdswas@aemet.es
http://sds-was.aemet.es
http://www.bsc.es/earth-sciences/sds-was
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