New Polar Observing Site Hub brings together information on more than 50,000 observing sites
A new online resource is making it easier to discover research and monitoring sites across the polar regions, bringing together information from four authoritative observing catalogues, including INTERACT.
The new Polar Observing Site Hub (POSH) provides a single point of discovery for information on more than 50,000 research and monitoring sites across the polar regions.
The resource brings together details on a wide range of observing locations and activities, including stations, observatories, facilities, research plots, moorings, platforms and community-based observations. It also captures sites where repeat measurements have been made, providing a broader picture of where and how observations are taking place across the Arctic and Antarctic.
For each site, POSH provides information such as its location, name and description, the responsible organisation, contact details, associated networks, observed properties and links to relevant data.
INTERACT among four authoritative sources
POSH is an aggregator rather than a replacement for existing observing catalogues. It harvests and links information from four authoritative source catalogues:
Arctic Observing Viewer (AOV)
DEIMS – Dynamic Ecological Information Management System
INTERACT
SIOS – Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System
By bringing information from these sources together, POSH allows users to search across multiple inventories without having to visit each catalogue separately.
For INTERACT, the inclusion of its site information in POSH provides another way for researchers, planners and other users to discover the extensive network of Arctic research stations and associated observing activities.
The approach also highlights the importance of maintaining the underlying catalogues. As POSH depends on the information provided by its source inventories, continued investment in resources such as INTERACT, DEIMS, AOV and SIOS remains essential to ensuring that observing information stays available, up to date and useful.
Supporting better coordination of polar observations
POSH is designed to support a wide range of users across the polar research and observing community.
For researchers, it can help identify facilities and projects to collaborate with, locate relevant observations and data, and identify sites that could support calibration and validation of satellite imagery.
For science planners, the resource can provide an overview of existing observing activity, helping to identify overlaps, gaps and opportunities for further observations. Network and logistics managers can use the information to explore opportunities to co-locate activities and make better use of limited resources, while funding organisations can use it to help identify potential duplication of effort.
The resource can also benefit local and Indigenous communities and other community members, by making it easier to discover observing activities and data being collected in their region.
A prototype with potential to grow
POSH is currently a prototype and proof of concept demonstrating how site metadata can be aggregated from a distributed ecosystem of observing inventories.
The developers plan to expand the resource as resources allow, with the potential to incorporate tens of thousands of additional sites from other inventories.
The longer-term ambition is to create a sustainable discovery portal that is distributed, interoperable, extensive and integrated, helping to make information about polar observing assets more Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR).
POSH focuses specifically on individual observing sites. It complements the Registry of Polar Observing Networks (RoPON), which provides information about the wider networks and organisations responsible for conducting or coordinating observations and monitoring.
Together, the two resources offer complementary perspectives: POSH helps users find where observations take place, while RoPON helps identify the networks behind them.
Collaboration across the polar observing community
POSH was developed through a collaboration between the Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON) initiative, the Arctic Portal and the University of Colorado Boulder, with initial funding from the NOAA GOMO Arctic Research Program.
The development aligns with the work of the SAON Polar Observing Assets Working Group (POAwg) and its goal of improving the discoverability and interoperability of metadata relating to polar observing assets.
The Polar Observing Site Hub is available at polarobservingsites.org, where users can explore observing sites across the polar regions and discover links back to the authoritative catalogues from which the information originates.
Photo: Charlotte Haugk
