2. CCSM Data Management Plan

A CCSM data management plan is needed to outline issues, and provide reference
material for initiating a comprehensive strategy for the management of data
produced by these models. The issues involved cover a wide variety of topics,
from the treatment of raw model output, to access by end users, and including
collaboration with external data management strategies. Although some of these
issues are already under consideration, it remains evident that CCSM should
develop a more organized and comprehensive plan to address the expected array
of data management issues. Thus, the first recommendation arises:
PRIMARY RECOMMENDATION: A CCSM Data Management Group (CDMG) be formed
immediately to begin to identify and priorize the needs of the community who
will generate, access, or use CCSM output data. The group should be composed
of core CCSM scientific and software engineering staff, as well as members of
the community, but should be kept to a small, manageable size. Data
management policies developed by this group should be approved by the SSC.
The task of the proposed CCSM Data Management Group will be to develop and
implement a data management strategy for CCSM data. One of the primary success
criteria for the CCSM project is the extent to which CCSM data is used by the
climate change community for research and assessment studies. Accordingly, the
overall goal of CCSM Data Management is to provide the best possible access and
ease of use of CCSM data to the US scientific community.
Key elements of a draft CDMG data management plan include

• coordinating the distributed CCSM data archives across the NSF, DOE and NASA data centers,
• coordination of timely post-processing and data presentation when a CCSM run is completed.
• enabling fast and easy web access to CCSM data
• providing procedures for quality control, analysis and validation of CCSM data
• definition of a lifecycle for CCSM data and provision for the long-term stewardship and stability of CCSM data.
• registering and auditing the characteristics of CCSM data users
  Other details such as coordination of CCSM data and metadata formats and
  providing tools for translating CCSM data into other popular formats will
  be addressed. For each element in the draft data management plan, specific
  policies will be proposed to support the various elements.
  +^