GeoHack 2016

The University of Washington's eScience Institute is planning a GeoHack Week aimed at expanding our understanding of software tools for the geosciences.

• When? Monday August 29 to Friday Sept 2, 2016
• Where? eScience Institute Data Science Studio
• Who? Randy LeVeque, Rob Fatland, Anthony Arendt: organizers/instructors. Additional instructors TBD.
• Why? Earth science challenges require interdisciplinary, collaborative solutions. New technologies are providing ever-increasing data volumes, but we can only leverage this new information if we have appropriate tools. We aim to fill a gap in formal educational programs by providing guidance on best practices for solving complex Earth science challenges.
• How? We will combine formal instruction with hackathons on datasets provided by the instructors. Show us how you typically handle data science challenges, and then work together with participants to forge new approaches and learn optimized methods.

A group of 20-30 participants are expected, from a wide array of geoscience specialties and backgrounds. A small registration fee will be charged to cover costs of the workshop.

Potential Topics:

• processing and manipulation of vector data (relational/geospatial databases, GIS tools)
• remote sensing image processing
• analysis of array-based data (e.g. climate grids)
• 3/4/+D data visualization
• methods for linking domain-specific software to datasets from other fields
• cloud solutions and Application Programming Interfaces

Potental Datasets for Hacking:

The geoHack team will prepare a series of existing datasets related to their ongoing research, and provide a series of exercises and challenges for the hackathon. These may include:

• Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) simulations of ocean temperature, currents and salinity: LiveOcean
• Tsunami modeling datasets, using GeoClaw
• ice2oceans: airborne LiDAR/radar, satellite remote sensing and field measurements of hydrological variations of snow and ice in the Gulf of Alaska region