Workshop: Building reproducible workflows for earth sciences

ECMWF is hosting the largest meteorological archive in the world with more than 300 PB stored on tape. Data created, used, archived and distributed by ECMWF are a valuable and unique asset. Often, they are generated at considerable expense and effort, and can be almost impossible to reproduce. As such, they should be properly governed and managed to ensure that the maximum value and benefit is extracted from them. It is also vital that they are available for reuse in the future. Often decisions about data can have far reaching implications which are not immediately apparent, and the Data Governance process provides the means to ensure that all impacts are properly considered. The "Data Governance" workflow therefore plays a crucial role and enables ECMWF to meet both current and future data challenges.
In this talk, I will review the type of data we handle at ECMWF and explain the importance of having precise, well-defined metadata to describe and index the information. I will illustrate the Data Governance process through a set of concrete examples covering new parameters and new types of data.