The Climate Change Knowledge Graph: Supporting Climate Services
Organizations: CNR - Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italy · Met Office, UK
Abstract
Climate change impacts a broad spectrum of human resources and activities, necessitating the use of climate models to project long-term effects and inform mitigation and adaptation strategies. These models generate multiple datasets by running simulations across various scenarios and configurations, thereby covering a range of potential future outcomes. Currently, researchers rely on traditional search interfaces and APIs to retrieve such datasets, often piecing together information from metadata and community vocabularies. The Climate Change Knowledge Graph is designed to address these challenges by integrating diverse data sources related to climate simulations into a coherent and interoperable knowledge graph. This innovative resource allows for executing complex queries involving climate models, simulations, variables, spatio-temporal domains, and granularities. Developed with input from domain experts, the knowledge graph and its underlying ontology are published with open access license and provide a comprehensive framework that enhances the exploration of climate data, facilitating more informed decision-making in addressing climate change issues.
Figures & tables
| Data source | Description |
|---|---|
| NetCDF (Network Common Data Form) | A self-describing, machine-independent format for array-oriented scientific data, widely used in climate datasets. In this project, only the metadata is accessed and represented in the knowledge graph to describe simulations and their properties, not the full data content. |
| ESGF (Earth System Grid Federation) | A distributed infrastructure for managing and accessing climate model and observational data. ESGF is used as a metadata source and access point for climate datasets relevant to the project. |
| CF Metadata Conventions | A set of standards for describing Earth science data in NetCDF files, defining variables and their spatial/temporal properties. These conventions support consistent metadata interpretation in the knowledge graph. |
| CMIP CVs and CMOR Tables | Controlled vocabularies and tables that describe key metadata elements (experiments, variables, models, etc.) used in CMIP datasets. The CMIP6 CVs are represented in the knowledge graph to support semantic indexing and integration. |
| CMIP Datasets | Outputs of climate model simulations structured by experiment, model, and configuration. A selected subset of CMIP5 datasets (historical and RCP scenarios) is mapped to the knowledge graph to represent both the datasets and their underlying simulations. |
| CORDEX | A framework for regional climate downscaling using domain-specific models and grids. CORDEX data and domain specifications are semantically represented, complementing the global CMIP5 datasets in the knowledge graph. |
Knowledge Graphs
Knowledge graphs represent entities and relationships as structured, queryable networks for integrating data and supporting reasoning.
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