The Impact on Quality and Uncertainty of Regridding Diverse Earth
Science Data for Integrative Analysis
Abstract
Understanding and communicating the impact of uncertainty on scientific
understanding is a critical unmet need in Earth Science. Challenging as
uncertainty determination is for “low level” data, the impact of
further processing must be understood, particularly when integrating
diverse data types. For example, a fundamental source of diversity is
data’s spatiotemporal distribution, for which Point, Grid, and Swath are
the most important overarching geographical types. To bring different
kinds of data together or bring observational data and model simulations
together, observation and simulation values must be “regridded” onto
the same grid, i.e. onto a comparable spatiotemporal representation. At
the finest level, this requires a detailed understanding of instrumental
fields of view and sensitivities. But regridding itself affects
uncertainty, especially in situations where significant or irregular
interpolation or even extrapolation are required. Furthermore, care must
be taken combining diverse data lest the integrated product inherit the
worst uncertainty characteristics of each. We have been developing
capacities for indexing, regridding, and integrating observation and
model simulation that scale to the size and diversity of Earth Science
data. In this presentation, we review the fundamental problems
associated with combining big, diverse Earth Science data for
integrative analysis and how to quantitatively assess and propagate the
uncertainties introduced. In particular, uncertainties associated with
regridding diverse data for various popular grids and regridding schemes
will be assessed.