1. Open Geospatial Consortium Meteorology & Oceanography Domain Working Group Overview
Chris Little, Co-Chair Met Ocean DWG
(Marie-Françoise Voidrot, Météo-France, Co-Chair)
Jeju, Korea
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

2. © 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
Introduction
OGC Overview
Other Standards organisations
OGC Structures
Met Ocean DWG
OGC-WMO MoU
OGC Standards
OGC Strategies
WMO / Met Ocean DWG Interests & Progress
Questions & Answers
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

3. © 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
OGC Overview 1
International, non-profit, consortium
Established 1994
Develop publicly available interface standards for geospatial data and services
454 companies, govt. agencies, universities, individuals
Voluntary consensus processes:
Specify
Implement
Interoperability Experiments
Change standards/implementations
Repeat
Some standards fast tracked in ISO
NA 169
SA 2
Eur 205
Afr 5
ME 8
AsiaPac 65
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

4. © 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
OGC Overview 2
Vision:
Realise societal, economic and scientific benefits of integrating electronic location resources into commercial and institutional processes worldwide
Mission:
global forum for collaboration of developers and users of spatial data products and services and to
advance the development of international standards for geospatial interoperability
Strategic Goals:
Goal 1 - Provide free and openly available standards to the market, tangible value to Members, and measurable benefits to users.
Goal 2 - Lead worldwide in the creation and establishment of standards that allow geospatial content and services to be seamlessly integrated into business and civic processes, the spatial web and enterprise computing.
Goal 3 - Facilitate the adoption of open, spatially enabled reference architectures in enterprise environments worldwide.
Goal 4 - Advance standards in support of the formation of new and innovative markets and applications for geospatial technologies.
Goal 5 - Accelerate market assimilation of interoperability research through collaborative consortium processes.
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

5. Other Standards Organisations
WMO
ICAO
ISO
ITU
UNESCO/IOC
IHO
IMO …
IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force)
IANA (Internet Assigned Name Authority)
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers)
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium )
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
OMG (Object Management Group)
International both treaty and non-treaty, Community based, Consortia
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

6. Where does OGC fit in the ‘standards’ world?
IETF / W3C
Infrastructure: WSDL, UDDI, SOAP, XML
De Facto
OGC
Software Interfaces: Instantiate Domain and De jure into Infrastructure
ISO/ CEN /
Nations
Domains: Object / Abstract Models, Content, Vocabulary
De Jure
Domain
Infrastructure
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

7. The Evolution of the OGC Strategic Focus…
Broad scale application of geoprocessing technology and expanded understanding of global inter-community relationships
Second generation web-based interoperable services and decision support systems
Improved integration of geoprocessing with mainstream information technology capabilities
Information and multi-platform interoperability capacity, composite services
Improved inter-community and multi-enterprise data and processing resource sharing and platform-independent interoperability
Technical and Socioeconomic Impact
First generation of web-based interoperable services
Improved multi-source information operations for technical interoperability in web-based environments, enabled enterprise applications and location services,
broad base of operational implementations
Capacity to exchange geospatial information and services across multiple computing environments, integrated with mainstream information technology
Open GIS Abstract Models
Enhanced understanding of geoprocessing interoperability and digital representation of Earth and Earth phenomena
Current Strategic Focus is:
Steady improvement in the Technical Baseline and inter-community resource sharing capacity
Open GIS Consortium established and Technical Committee organized
OGC Technical Baseline
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8. © 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
OGC Structures
Board of Directors (25) , Staff (16) , Members (454)
Strategic Member Advisory Committee
OGC Architecture Board (OAB)
Programmes:
Specification
Interoperability
Outreach & Adoption
Planning Committee – quarterly
Technical Committee – quarterly, open conference
Standing Subcommittees:
Documentation,
Naming Authority,
Compliance Interoperability & Testing Evaluation (CITE)
SWG Standards Working Groups – ‘vertical’ (36)
Short life, for duration of creation/change of standard
DWG Domain Working Groups – ‘horizontal’ (28)
Met Ocean
Hydrology
Aviation
Regional and National Forums
Strategic, $serious money
Principal-Plus $lotsamoney
Principal, $55K
Technical, $11K
Associate (6 price levels) $500-$4K
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

9. OCG Technical and Planning Committees
All members in Technical Committee
Standard and Domain WGs formally meet at TC
Lots of Telecons, Mailing lists, Wikis. Controlled Website
Meets for 4 days every quarter:
2010 Q3 Toulouse
2010 Q4 Sydney
2011 Q1 Bonn
2011 Q2 Taiwan
2011 Q3 Boulder
2011 Q4 Brussels
2012 Q1 Austin
2012 Q2 Exeter
2012 Q3 Seoul
2012 Q4 Redlands ( )
2013 Q1 Abu Dhabi
Followed by 1 day Planning Committee
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

10. OGC Public Documents Implementation Standards (50)
Profiles of Standards (5)
Abstract Specification and Reference Model (~20 topics)
Formal Schemas (26)
Best Practices (25)
Public Discussion Papers & Engineering Reports (~200)
Policy directives and documents (8)
White Papers (36)
Requests for Comment, Requests for Quotation
Change Requests
Deprecated and Retired Documents

11. >36 OGC Public Standards
Catalogue Service (CSW) / Cat: ebRIM App Profile: Earth Observation Products
CityGML
Coordinate Transformation
Filter Encoding
Geography Mark-up Language (GML, ISO19136:2007) / GML in JPEG 2000 / KML
Geospatial eXtensible Access Control Mark-up Language (GeoXACML)
Location Services (OpenLS)
Observations and Measurements (O&M, proposed ISO19156)
Sensor Model Language (SML)
Sensor Observation Service (SOS)
Sensor Planning Service (SPS)
Simple Features / CORBA / OLE/COM / SQL (SF, ISO19106:2004, ISO19107:2003)
Styled Layer Descriptor / Symbology Encoding (SLD/SE) / Geographic Objects
Transducer Mark-up Language (TML)
Web Coverage Service / Web Coverage Processing Service / Grid Coverage Service
Web Feature Service (WFS)
Web Map Service (WMS, ISO19128:2005) / Web Map Context
Web Map Tile Service (WMTS)
Web Processing Service (WPS)
Web Service Common (OWS Common)
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

12. OGC Standards Working Groups (2012)
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14. OGC Portal http://www.opengeospatial.org/ogc
This page is ‘Requests for Comment’ section.
Topics down the LH side, and tabs across the top
Portal has public and private sections: working (pending) documents in private section, agreed standards in public section
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

15. © 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
OGC Change Requests
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

16. OGC Domain Working Groups (2012)
Copyright © 2009, Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
Copyright (c) 2009 OPen Geospatial Consortium

17. Met Ocean Domain Working Group
Regular ECWMF Operations Workshop 2007: recommended workshop/conference on GIS
Workshop on the Use of GIS/OGC Standards in Meteorology:
ECMWF, /26
Review use of OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) standards in geo-sciences in Europe & worldwide
Promote collaboration between meteorological services in order to define a set of common standards that will enhance interoperability
Recommended OGC involvement and establish Met DWG
Established major theme: Web Map Services interoperability for National Met Services
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

18. Met Ocean Domain Working Group
UK Met Office, Météo-France joined OGC
At OGC Tech Conf, Athens, :
Meteorology DWG established
Hydrology DWG also established
At OGC Tech Conf, Darmstadt, :
Meteorology DWG converted itself to
Meteorology & Oceanography DWG
Stopped separate Climatology DWG
Environmental System Science DWG well established
Hydro separate, Met Ocean combined, including Climatology

19. Met Ocean Domain Working Group
OGC and WMO signed MoU (Met, Ocean, Hydro)
2nd Workshop on Use of GIS/OGC Standards in Meteorology
Toulouse, November 2009
Established second major work theme: Conceptual modelling
Third workshop planned Exeter 2010, Observations theme
3rd Workshop on Use of GIS/OGC Standards in Meteorology
Exeter, November 2010
Progressed previous work, re-established Interoperability Experiments,
SLD/SE started
4th workshop planned Washington 2011 or 2012?
Community workshops, not OGC
4th workshop never happened
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

20. OGC-WMO Memorandum of Understanding
Signed 23 November 2009
Compromise between:
WMO-No. 60: Basic Documents No edition
ftp://ftp.wmo.int/Documents/MediaPublic/Publications/Policy_docs/060E.pdf
Standard OGC MoU terms
‘Umbrella’ MoU over organisations, encompassing:
OGC Met Oceans DWG and Hydrology DWG
all WMO Commissions:
CBS, CHy, JCOMM, CCl, CIMO, CAeM, CAgM, CAS
Short legal document, with flexible Annexe
Lightweight – let experts get on with the work
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

21. © 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
OGC-WMO MoU Outcomes
Key WMO role-players identified
WMO Secretariat Information Systems Branch
Experts representing the following Technical Commissions to liaise with OGC Met Ocean- and Hydrology DWGs
Commission for Basic Systems (CBS)
Commission for Instruments and Methods of Observation (CIMO)
Commission for Climatology (CCl)
Commission for Hydrology (CHy)
Joint WMO-IOC Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM)
One CBS expert to liaise with above mentioned experts
Coordination of WMO and DWG activities
Establishment of a WMO-OGC coordination team consisting of WMO and OGC nominated experts and co-chairs of DWG (Proposal to be confirmed by OGC)
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. 21

22. OGC-WMO MoU Outcomes (continued…)
Addressing WMO requirements
OGC-WMO coordination team to ensure that the requirements expressed by WMO Programmes are appropriately acknowledged within DWG activities
Reporting structures
Reporting between OGC and WMO through OGC-WMO coordination team
WMO lead Technical Commission should be CBS
WMO internal reporting through nominated coordinator and experts
Synchronization of DWG activities
Joint meetings
Identification of areas of cooperation (e.g. joint IEs)
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. 22

23. Challenges for OGC standards in Meteorology
Long history of interoperability at human/paper level
Spatial & Temporal, 2D, 3D, 4+D, constantly changing
Not MBytes, but GB, TB and PetaBytes of data daily.
Irregular time intervals
Timescales: hours,.., seasons,.., centuries, + & -
Multiple Time attributes
‘Regular’ grids are not always regular
Continual change of coordinate systems & projecting
Eulerian versus Lagrangian viewpoints
Vertical coordinates
Cross-sections, height-time diagrams, T/φs, etc
Ensembles: probabilistic distributions
Significant ‘Objects’, features of interest
‘Now’ T+0, not allowed in calculations in Is allowed in 19139
360 day years
Interpolation is routine and sophisticated, using a NWP, or truncation. Could be continuous or dichotomous at same time
Scalars, vectors, tensors
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

24. Met Ocean DWG work
Wiki (open)
Mailing list (open)
Teleconferences most / many Tuesdays, 15: :00 UTC
WMS Best Practice, retrofit WMS 1.3:
TIME
Climatological Periods & Time
Vertical Coordinates, ELEVATION
Coordinate Reference Systems CRS (being tackled in other groups)
Customer / User orientated, so no Met traditional terminology
SLD/SE wiki and GitHub
Conceptual Modelling
Based on O&M
Jeremy Tandy leading, driven by Aviation, but long term
WCS, new WCS 2.0
Extra 3rd Co-Chair?

26. © 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.
OGC Strategies
‘Old Guard’ “2D world” vs ‘New Guard’ “4D+ world”
Restructuring standards in to Core + Extensions
Moving from KVP Client/Service API to RESTful http based
Keep using Interoperability Experiments and Test Beds
Scenario and Use Case driven
Establishing naming, registries & validation chains with URIs
Expanding from US based to European to global
Expanding out of traditional GIS communities
Opened up Twikis, Mailing lists in response to MODWG
Follow the money!
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

27. Example of Implementation Differences - WCS
Visual Weather WCS
THREDDS WCS (1.0.0)
Service
Data source (e.g. all Global model runs)
Single instance of data source (e.g. a single Global model run)
COVERAGE
Met parameter (e.g. temperature) but no standard names
Spatial domain
2D BBOX + ‘ELEVATION’ range parameter
3D BBOX + ‘VERTICAL’ range parameter
Time domain
TIME for validity time + ‘DIM_RUN’ & ‘DIM_FORECAST’ range parameters for analysis time and forecast period
TIME for validity time
(Analysis time is covered by service)
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

28. WMO / Met Ocean DWG Interests
WMS – Currently Proactive
Time – Several Proposals, consensus nearly achieived. Informal IE held
Elevation
Map Projections – changes to existing repositories in progress
SLD/SE – Aviation SigWx and standard WMO Plots Use Cases - slow
Tiling – WMTS now a separate standard – jigsaw edges – stationary!
Conceptual Modelling - Currently Proactive
WXXM for Aviation
GML3.2.1, KML2.2
geoSMS for use with CAP??
WCS/WFS – lots of ‘churn’ - Currently Reactive, becoming proactive
4D, CRS,
payload formats,
vector vs raster
CSW – compatibility with ISO23950, OpenSearch - Currently Reactive
O&M, SWE increasing in importance - Currently Passive
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

29. WMO / Met Ocean DWG currently NOT Interested
GeoXAMCL – security at detailed feature level
CityGML – city and building modelling
OpenLS - Location Services ??
WPS - Web Processing Service ??
3D and Augmented Reality ??
Etc
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

30. Met Ocean DWG: Some Interesting Domain WGs
Active dialogues
Aviation
Catalogues
Co-ordinate Reference Systems
Coverages
Defence & Intelligence
Emergency & Disaster Management
Hydrology
Metadata (Discovery, not Interpretation)
Not currently Active
Data Preservation
Decision Support
Earth Systems Science
Location Services
Mass Market
Sensor Web Enablement

31. Met Ocean DWG future work priorities
Work on Met Ocean aspects of WCS2.0 proposals
Extend WMS1.3 BP to other standards (WMTS… Other than WCS 2.0)
Follow GeoTIFF WCS shortcut process with WMO GRIB format
Expand WMS1.3 BP with climatological periods, calendars, etc
Carry on with weather symbols in SVG for SLD/SE on Github
Interact more with the on Aviation DWG for Met
Express requirements/Change Request to WMS2.0
Influence other OGC standards e.g. PubSub?, etc
Extend the BP towards a Profile (+ Chair WMS SWG)
Work on WMO Registries, SKOS, etc

32. OGC Met Ocean DWG Summary
is becoming global, rather than American
has opened up processes to community groups
Twiki, mailing lists
is updating standards from client/server to RESTful
Is restructuring standards to a ‘Core & Extensions’ model
In middle of ‘2D+Layers’ versus ‘4D+slice & dice’ churn
Interoperability Experiments and Test beds are still heavyweight, to protect members’ IPR
Not an issue for Met Ocean community
Has taken on Met Ocean requirements in key standards, even when Met Ocean people not actively involved
More volunteers and experts needed
© 2010 Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.

33. Met Ocean DWG Summary
Members: UKMO, M-F, DWD, ECWMF, EUMETSAT, met.no, FMI, CMC, NOAA, KNMI, (JMA, KMA, ??)
WMS Best Practice recommendations made
Consistency between WMO, ICAO and OGC conceptual models achieved
Work started on WCS and data payloads
Non-WMO observations are increasingly important, so OGC observation standards will become important
4th Workshop on Use of GIS/OGC Standards in Meteorology
ECMWF, Reading, 4-6 March 2013
Lots of work, increasing importance – join in!

34. Met Ocean DWG
Questions and Answers?