The National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) in Taiwan, Province of China, launched a new database on climatic conditions. The Earth Science Observation Knowledgebase (ESOK) includes 10.44 million records on atmosphere, hydrology, ocean currents, tectonics and space.
ESOK includes a big variety of local academic data as well as Earth Observation data, such as ground images by Formosat-2, a high-resolution earth observation satellite operated by the National Space Organization. It also includes ionosphere data from the Formosat-3 satellite, shock wave data from the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering and measurement records from Taiwan Ocean Research Institute.
Lin Fang-pang, a research scientist and director of NCHC Cloud Computing and System Integration, said: "The database combines networking and storage technology, playing an important role in expanding our understanding of the ever-changing land in which we live in."
Besides providing a wide range of Earth-observation data, ESOK can be used for disasters management purposes, such as in the case of earthquakes and typhoons, as well as to assess and monitor climate change-related phenomena.
