FAIR long term preservation of climate and Earth System Science data
with a focus on reusability at the World Data Center for Climate (WDCC)
Abstract
The full-featured and CoreTrustSeal certified long term archiving
service LTA WDCC (World Data Centre for Climate) at DKRZ (German Climate
Computing Center, Hamburg) offers long term preservation for datasets
relevant for climate and Earth System research. The WDCC collects,
stores, and disseminates Earth System data with a focus on climate
simulation data and climate related data products. It has established
itself as a staple infrastructure for the global climate modelling
research community. Data preservation in LTA WDCC is preceded by a
thorough technical quality control and provides intense data curation
for storage periods longer than 10 years. During the preservation
period, long term findability, searchability and reusability of the data
are ensured. Long term findability of the curated data is enabled
through the possibility of assigning DataCite DOI’s to archived
datasets. The data undergo additional quality checks before being
eligible for DOI assignment. This process is performed in close
collaboration with the data providers. The focus of these quality checks
is to ensure the unambigous (inter-)disciplinary reusability of the
preserved datasets and includes checking for proper documentation,
adherence to domain specific (meta)data standards, uncertainty analysis
and cross-referencing. Only then can a high level of reusability of the
data be achieved, justifying the involved effort. The perceived need for
research data repositories to comply with the 2016-published FAIR
Guiding Principles has motivated us to perform an even-handed and
systematic self assessment of LTA WDCC FAIRness. Due to lack of a
standardised evaluation framework, this assessment reflects our
specific, albeit objective, interpretation of the principles. Our
assessment, published on the DKRZ webpages, shows that the native
philosophy behind DKRZ’s LTA WDCC service – especially the focus on
reusability – reflects the FAIR Guiding Principles by design and even
goes beyond them by ensuring very long-term (>10 years)
preservation and therefore reusability of archived data.