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August 22 2007
John Orcutt of IGPP leads team to deploy LOOKING grid
John Orcutt, a professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, is part of a team trying to learn more about the changes occrring in our oceans. Orcutt is working on a project called LOOKING: the Laboratory for the Ocean Observatory Knowledge Integration Grid. A team effort involving nine institutions across the United States, LOOKING is using grid technology to raise the bar when it comes to oceanographic data.
John Orcutt
"We have a sensor grid with thousands of different sensors providing real time data," says Orcutt.
"We also use a data grid, supported by Storage Resource Broker, to manage our various systems, including databases. Our information is spread over many computers, but to a user it looks like its all in one place."
The LOOKING grid also includes a fleet of research vessels that scour the planet for new information. "There are 26 ships registered in the U.S. academic fleet," says Orcutt. "Four are from Scripps, and about 15 have satellite communications. These ships are all over the planet, and all linked. They're taking measurements of everything you can imagine: ocean currents, temperature, meteorology, seismology..."
These data—much of it in real time—is coordinated through a grid, furnishing ocean-going researchers with the insight of their landlocked or similarly ocean-going peers.
LOOKING allows scientists to observe and analyze data streams in real time, and
then use this information to "interact" with the networks, changing each network
in response to recent data analysis. This particular image shows the planned
Ocean Observatories Iniative Extended Depth Platform, to be constructed for midocean
measurements.
Image courtesy of LOOKING
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