Mazama Science

Arctic Transport Potential

The deposition of soot from wildland fires is a significant contributor to observed warming trends in the Arctic. Knowing when wind patterns are likely to transport soot to the Arctic can help guide decisions about when to use prescribed burns in forest management.

The Arctic Transport Potential Forecast viewer uses trajectory model data based on current weather forecasts to provide daily guidance on the liklihood that emissions from different regions will impact the Arctic. Trajectories calculated for a full North American grid are filtered to see which starting grid cells and which starting heights contribute soot to Arctic regions. Originating cells and Arctic-bound trajectories are displayed in semi-transparent colors to highlight source regions and show patterns of atmospheric flow.

This work was funded by the US Forest Service Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory.

Climatological Trajectory Mapper

Smoke from forestfires can have significant impacts on human health, especially in the western US. The Forest Service uses trajectories from atmospheric models to better understand where forest fire smoke would have gone in past years -- providing a first guess as to where smoke from current fires will go.

The Trajectory Mapper accesses 30 years worth of 4x daily model output (6.3 terabytes) to provide a climatological look at smoke trajectory paths. Interactive response time allows USFS scientists to explore this large database in new ways and gain new understanding of how smoke from large scale fires disperses and where it might affect human health.

This work was funded by the US Forest Service Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory.

Watershed Explorer

The NetMap community watershed modeling site generates large amounts of GIS data from scientific models that address climate, hydrology, forestry, fish habitat, roads, etc. Providing easy access to the results of these models is highly desirable.

The Watershed Explorer provides access to these data in a new type of web-enabled GIS system that combines powerful statistical features with GooglMaps based ease of use. Exploring large GIS databases can now be done in a web browser and no longer requires special GIS skills.

This work was funded by Earth Systems Institute.

Riparian Management Explorer

Various conflicting pressures affect forest management practices in the Pacific Northwest. These include: company profits, community jobs, endangered birds that require mature forests and endangered fish that benefit from large woody debris in streams. Figuring out how to manage streamside timber stands is a challenging task.

The Riparian Management Explorer allows users to ‘adjust the knobs’ on a reach-scale model of wood transport into streams and see the results in real time. Different scenarios can be compared to better understand which sylvicultural treatment will provde the optimal benefit.

This work was funded by Earth Systems Institute.

Energy Import/Export

Access to fossil fuels is one of the most important issues of our time. The world's largest economies are extremely dependent upon imported supplies of oil and gas. Understanding who produces and consumes oil, coal and natural gas is critical today and will remain so in the years ahead.

This databrowser uses data from the BP Statistical Review and displays coal, oil & natural gas production and consumption time lines for each country in the database and several political and geographic groupings of nations. Users can dynamically plot import/export curves to get a sense of who the major fossil fuel producers and consumers are and how this has changed in the last four decades.

Natural Gas Trends

This databrowser extends some of the ideas from the Energy Import/Export databrowser and was created for a presentation at the 2010 Peak Oil conference. Data from the BP Statistical Review are combined with gas data from the US Energy Information Administration and population data from the US Census Bureau. Additional plot options are available that give users more specific control of the output graphics to better tell the stories in the data.

This databrowser also showcases the possibility of connecting exploratory graphics with explanatory text by linking specific user-generated graphics to related posts in an associated Energy Trends blog.

Population Trends

Understanding global population trends is extremely important for those trying to make projections regarding economics and natural resource usage.

The Population Trends databrowser provides easy access to graphics derived from the US Census Bureau's International Data Base (IDB). According to the Census Bureau:

"IDB data capture the timing and demographic impact of important events such as wars, famine, and natural disasters, with a precision exceeding that of other online resources for international demographic data."

Mineral Production and Use

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has the following to say regarding mineral resources within the United States:

"Mineral materials processed domestically accounted for more than $575 billion in the U.S. economy in 2007. U.S. manufacturers and consumers require increasing amounts of imported mineral materials. Making informed decisions about supply and development of mineral commodities that are critical to our economy and security requires current and reliable information about both mineral resources and the consequences of their development."

This databrowser uses data from the USGS Dataseries 140 covering a wide range of minerals used in all areas of manufacturing, construction and agriculture. Several different visualization styles are available, each tailored to answer a specific set of questions regarding mineral use and availability. The goal of the US Minerals Databrowser is to make it easier to extract meaningful information from this valuable dataset.

Futures Explorer

Futures contracts allow traders to buy and sell commodities for delivery at some future date at a pre-determined price. A futures chain is created when prices for futures of subsequent months are chained together. In the current environment of volatile commodity prices, futures chains provide a snapshot of the "emotional state" of the market -- the level of optimism or pessimism about near term and long term prospects for both the economy and the availability of energy resources such as oil and natural gas.

The Futures Explorer uses daily prices for a variety of commodity futures from March 01, 2011 to yesterday's close. (Energy futures go back to January, 2010.) Users may select dates to compare market predictions from the past with the actual closing prices they were trying to predict. The data are presented in a manner that shows the weekly, monthly and quarterly variation in futures prices, providing an intuitive picture of volatility in commodity markets.

EPA Probabilistic Survey Analysis

EPA's regional stream surveys were designed to collect data that are representative of conditions throughout the sampled watershed. Random site selection ensures that summary statistics derived from the data are unbiased and can be used to guide planning and management efforts at a regional scale.

This databrowser displays summary statistics for measures of biological condition, water chemistry, and site condition for wadeable streams. Users may test for correlation among response variables and human influence. Users may also subset the data and compare summary statistics and patterns of correlation according to year, state, stream order, or other factors.

This work was funded by the EPA Office of Environmental Information.

(This databrowser is no longer supported by the EPA and is currently non-functional.)

EPA Relative Risk Analysis

Relative risk is a statistical method widely applied in human health reporting to summarize and compare the risk of developing an illness for a given set of factors. This approach has been adapted to summarize the effects of different stressors on the environmental health of streams. Because streams experience a variety of stressors (e.g., increased nutrients, loss of riparian habitat, sediment), resource managers need a method to identify which threats present the greatest risk in order to implement effective programs to protect them. Relative risk summarizes the strength of the association between a stressor and an indicator of stream condition.

This databrowser links relative risk calculations to the national Wadeable Streams Assessment data set. Benthic macroinvertebrates were used to assess stream condition. The databrowser allows users to compare the relative importance of various stressors across political or ecological regions.

This work was funded by the EPA Office of Environmental Information.

(This databrowser is no longer supported by the EPA and is currently non-functional.)

Rheumatology

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic autoimmune disorder affecting millions of individuals. Various drug treatments are available to treat the disease. The recently introduced TNF-alpha inhibitors show promising results in clinical studies but command a high per-treatment price. In an effort to carefully evaluate the effectiveness of these drugs several European countries have begun systematically tracking patient response to these treatments.

The data in the Rheumatology Databrowser come from a European database of patients undergoing therapy for rheumatoid arthritis. A version of this databrowser is presently in pre-production use in rheumatology hospitals serviced by our international healthcare partners. This databrowser is being evaluated by rheumatology researchers as a way to consistently apply vetted statistical analyses to a growing database of patient data.

This work was funded by the Danish medical informatics company ZiteLab.