Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften

Abstract:
This paper outlines the implementation of a web-based tool for the visualization of climate data in the area of Villach using the Java based virtual globe framework World Wind of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The used climate data is provided by the research project Sensors4All, developed by the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences (CUAS), School of Geoinformation and Environmental Technologies due to the departments research focus on “Environmental Monitoring” by accomplishing projects concerning Sensor Web Enablement (ANDRAE et al. 2009, ANDRAE & SIMONIS 2011) and sensor data validation (ANDERS & HECKE 2011). The Sensor4All sensor network itself is currently limited to 15 sensors that are situated on the roofs of the CUAS sites in Villach and Feldkirchen, on top of the mountain Dobratsch and on roofs of other well-situated educational institutions in the area of Villach. Since May 2011 they are continuously collecting data of the weather phenomena temperature, precipitation, humidity, air pressure and wind speed (HECKE et al. 2012). The only way of viewing the collected data of the Sensors4All research project in a cartographic manner was to send a request to a GeoServer that returned an interpolated Web Mapping Service (WMS) data layer of the last temperature measurement (DE LA BEAUJARDIERE 2006). This layer could be included in Google Earth to get an idea of the affected area and the temperature profile. Due to the fact that a user could neither view any past measurements, nor choose another phenomenon, the visualization tool was developed. It enables the user not only to decide between different phenomena in a specific time frame, but also to change the height gradient for temperature, precipitation and air pressure, view climate diagrams and exclude measurements of specific sensors from visualization. Additionally the visualized layer can be aggregated by using the maximal, minimal, average or summation of the measured values of the chosen sensors in the specific time frame. The possibility to load external WMS layers was also implemented, so that the previous visualization method of Sensors4All and a certain degree of expandability is provided.