Mission Statement
IDEAS aims to provide virtual representations of the physical environment by continuously onboarding new observations to improve forecast and prediction for integrated science and decision support. Using Digital Twin architecture, IDEAS hopes to improve the understanding, prediction of and mitigation/response to Earth system processes, natural phenomena and human activities as well as their many interactions through analysis of hypothetical scenarios. IDEAS is part of NASA's Earth Science Division, which aims to better understand Earth's systems and changes to inform decisions that affect the future of the planet. Current IDEAS digital twins include analysis and prediction for air quality and flood events.
The IDEAS project is supported via NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office from the Advanced Information Systems Technology program.
Earth System Digital Twin
Led by the Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) program, an Earth System Digital Twin (ESDT) serves as an integrated information system with the capability to continuously assess the impacts of natural and human activities on physical and natural environments. ESDTs offer the advantage of providing near real-time direct observations across various domains, including space, air, ground, underwater, and socioeconomic systems. They achieve this by dynamically integrating Earth system models, infrastructure-related models, historical records, analytics, and Artificial Intelligence tools.
An ESDT is structured around three pivotal components: "What now?", "What next?", and "What if?". These components are strategically aligned with AIST's fundamental objectives within the Digital Twin framework. Their collective mission is to advance the representation, prediction, and exploration of intricate Earth system phenomena within the realm of future ESDTs. For further insight into each objective, simply click on the tabs below.
In pursuit of these goals, AIST has identified and selected thirteen projects dedicated to advancing ESDT efforts in accordance with these strategic principles. These projects will explore technologies that contribute to the improvement of ESDT infrastructure, ML-surrogate modeling for ESDT applications, the application of Adaptive Control Framework within ESDTs, and the development of fully-functional ESDT prototypes.
What now?
What next?
What if?
The What now? component of an ESDT encapsulates one of AIST's overarching objectives: to
create reusable
information system frameworks that maintain continuous and precise representations of evolving systems. In
this context, a Digital Replica is nourished by an ongoing stream of diverse, targeted
observations,
enabling it to offer a dependable depiction of the Earth System's present state. This aligns seamlessly
with AIST's mission to foster information system frameworks that seamlessly adapt to changes over time
while maintaining accuracy.
The essence of What if? encapsulates AIST's fundamental objective: furnishing the
necessary tools for
conducting "what-if" investigations that yield actionable predictions.
Incorporating the Impact Assessment, this approach leverages the Digital Replica along
with ML forecasting capabilities, causality assessment, uncertainty quantification, and advanced
computational and visualization resources. These components collectively empower the execution of
extensive simulations across a range of spatial and temporal scales. Consequently, this enables us to
scrutinize and evaluate various "what-if" scenarios within our system of interest.
Explore IDEAS ESDTs
Develop with IDEAS APIs
Science Data Analytics Platform (SDAP)
SDAP is a professional open source implementation of an Analytics Center Framework (ACF). It is an
ensemble of big data technologies for Earth science that is optimized to leverage the elastic cloud
or
on-premise computing clusters. SDAP has a growing collection of webservice capabilities including:
satellite and model data analysis, anomaly detection, in situ data integration and matchup, fast
data
subsetting, and Machine Learning-Driven search and discovery. Thus, the SDAP API is best fit for
retreiving data and data analysis results.
Root URL
https://ideas-digitaltwin.jpl.nasa.gov/nexus
List Datasets
Endpoint: /list
Description: Provides a list of available data sets.
Output Type:
JSON
Example Call:
https://ideas-digitaltwin.jpl.nasa.gov/nexus/list
Spark Time Series
Description: Computes time series statistics
Endpoint: /timeSeriesSpark
Output Type: see output parameter.
Query Parameters:
| Parameter | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
ds |
required | The dataset on which to generate the statistics.
e.g. one of shortName value as supplied
by
the /list endpoint.
|
b |
required | Bounding box Minimum (Western) Longitude, Minimum (Southern) Latitude, Maximum (Eastern)
Longitude, Maximum (Northern) Latitude.
e.g. -60.0,10.0,-45.0,30.0
|
startTime |
required | Starting time in format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ssZ or seconds since EPOCH.
e.g. 1453072400
|
endTime |
required | Ending time in format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ssZ or seconds since EPOCH.
e.g. 1463072400
|
seasonalFilter |
optional | Flag used to specify if the seasonal averages should be computed during Time Series
computation.
e.g. False
|
lowPassFilter |
optional | Flag used to specify if a low pass filter should be computed during Time Series computation.
e.g. False
|
spark |
optional | Configuration used to launch in the Spark cluster.
Value should be 3 elements separated by commas. 1) Spark Master 2)
Number of Spark Executors 3) Number of Spark Partitions. Only Number of
Spark Partitions is used by this function.
e.g. local,4,8
|
output |
optional | Data formatting for results. Default is JSON. Alternative is
CSV for comma-seperated values.
|
Spark Average Daily Difference
Description: Computes anomalies for a specified region over a specified timeframe.
Endpoint: /dailydifferenceaverage_spark
Output Type:
JSON
Query Parameters:
| Parameter | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
dataset |
required | The dataset on which to calculate anomalies. One of shortName value as supplied by the /list endpoint.
e.g. AVHRR_OI_L4_GHRSST_NCEI
|
climatology |
required | The dataset climatology used to calculate anomalies. One of shortName value as supplied by
the /list endpoint.
e.g. AVHRR_OI_L4_GHRSST_NCEI_CLIM
|
b |
required | Minimum (Western) Longitude, Minimum (Southern) Latitude, Maximum (Eastern) Longitude,
Maximum
(Northern) Latitude.
e.g. -170,-5,-120,5
|
startTime |
required | Start time in which to calculate anomalies, in format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ssZ or seconds since
EPOCH (Jan 1st, 1970).
e.g. 1291190400
|
endTime |
required | End time in which to calculate anomalies, in format YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ssZ or seconds since
EPOCH (Jan 1st, 1970).
e.g. 1462086000
|
OnEarth
OnEarth is a software package consisting of image formatting and serving modules which facilitate
the deployment of a web service capable of efficiently serving standards-based requests for
georeferenced raster imagery (and vectors) at multiple spatial resolutions including, but not
limited to, full spatial resolution. The software was originally developed at JPL to serve global
daily composites of MODIS imagery. Since then, it has been deployed
and repurposed in other installations, including at the Physical Oceanography Distributed Active
Archive Center (PO.DAAC) in support of the
State of the Oceans (SOTO)
visualization tool, the Lunar
Mapping and Modeling Project (LMMP),
and Worldview.
Web Map Tile Service (WMTS)
Sample imagery not included.
Root URL
https://ideas-digitaltwin.jpl.nasa.gov/wmts
Endpoints
/status
Description: Check OnEarth WMTS is running.
/epsg4326
Description: EPSG geographic projections.
Demo call:
https://ideas-digitaltwin.jpl.nasa.gov/demo/wmts/epsg4326/
/epsg3857
Description: EPSG webmercator projections.
Demo call:
https://ideas-digitaltwin.jpl.nasa.gov/demo/wmts/epsg3857/
/epsg3413
Description: EPSG arctic projections.
Demo call:
https://ideas-digitaltwin.jpl.nasa.gov/demo/wmts/epsg3413/
/epsg3031
Description: EPSG antarctic projections.
Demo call:
https://ideas-digitaltwin.jpl.nasa.gov/demo/wmts/epsg3031/
Sample Requests
GetCapabilities Request:
Tile Request:
Web Mapping Service (WMS)
Root URL
https://ideas-digitaltwin.jpl.nasa.gov/wms
Endpoints
/status
Description: Check OnEarth WMS is running.
/epsg4326
Description: EPSG geographic projections.
/epsg3857
Description: EPSG webmercator projections.
/epsg3413
Description: EPSG arctic projections.
/epsg3031
Description: EPSG antarctic projections.
Sample Requests
GetCapabilities Request:
Tile Request: