The goal of this project is to give researchers easy access to complex climate data with the climatearchive.org web
application as a front end and our software solution as the backend to provide access to the data. The website
currently visualises the research data in 3D, however quantitative access to the underlying data is needed to improve
interdisciplinary research. We will provide a solution which filters the database and produces smaller data subsets
which could then be downloaded/visualised from the browser.
The typical stakeholders for this project will be researchers, or other people who may be interested in the data,
who may not be particularly tech savy.
Researchers
Individulas interested in the data
Sebastian
Coders (us)
A researcher / individual interested in the data, I should be able to:
-select a point on the globe on the alreadyprovided climate change model in order to extract point data for a selected location and time period.
-view and compare graphs generated from comparing these data points.
-download datasets generated from certain parameters
-share datasets/graphs generated at specific points with other individuals
Note: we are mainly working on our client's private repository to add features to climatearchive.org and on a backend server to provide access to underlying climate data.
The server can be downloaded from the releases tab or built from source.
Download the source code using
git clone https://github.com/spe-uob/2021-ClimateArchive.git
Compile into a jar file using
cd 2021-ClimateArchive
mvn package -DskipTests
This will save climateArchive.jar in the target directory
First place climateArchive.jar into your chosen directory.
Create a config folder using in the same directory with mkdir config
Create the file application.properties in the config file
In this file enter the config
data_location=<path to climate data>
The server can now be started by running java -jar climateArchive.jar
To have the program running in the background on a linux machine you can use a service. These instructions
are only tested on ubuntu but should work on other distributions, maybe with some small modifications
Create the file /lib/systemd/system/climate_archive.service and paste the following
[Unit]
Description=climate archive data api
[Service]
WorkingDirectory=<path to climateArchive.jar>
ExecStart=java -jar climateArchive.jar
User=<user>
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Now the service can be started by running
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start climate_archive.service
The server can only access models which have been added to the database. They can be added through the commandline using the command
java -jar climateArchive.jar --add_models --models=<models to add seperated by ",">
The separator used can be changed by setting the model_sep property in application.properties
Model template formats are taken from the model_templates property in application.properties with the template
fulfilling the most fields being picked.
Templates should be in the following format
<Climate_Archive_Model_Template>/climate/<Climate_Archive_Field_Template>.nc
<Climate_Archive_Model_Template> will be replaced with the name of the model and
<Climate_Archive_Field_Template> will be replaced with the field being requested
The filled in template will be added to the data_location path when fetching data
Additionally:
<Climate_Archive_Model_Template>is the model name with case as given from the command line<CLIMATE_ARCHIVE_MODEL_TEMPLATE>is the model in upper case<climate_archive_model_template>is the model in lower case<Climate_Archive_Field_Template>is the field with case as given<CLIMATE_ARCHIVE_FIELD_TEMPLATE>is the field in upper case<climate_archive_field_template>is the field in lower case
The separator used can be changed by setting the model_templates_sep property in application.properties
Examples of templates
For example given that the model is Model and the field is Example using the following template
<Climate_Archive_Model_Template>/climate/<climate_archive_model_template>.pdcl<Climate_Archive_Field_Template>.nc
The filled in template will be
Model/climate/model.pdclExample.nc
For a more extreme example given that the model is Model and the field is Example using the following template
<Climate_Archive_Model_Template>/<CLIMATE_ARCHIVE_MODEL_TEMPLATE>/<climate_archive_model_template>/<Climate_Archive_Field_Template>/<CLIMATE_ARCHIVE_FIELD_TEMPLATE>/<climate_archive_field_template>.nc
The filled in template will be
Model/MODEL/model/Example/EXAMPLE/example.nc
This will then be added to the data location path when reading the file
The following properties can be specified in the config file.
| Property | Description | Default Value |
|---|---|---|
| data_location | The path to the folder containing all models | ./data |
| model_separator | The separator used for splitting the list of models (regex) | , |
| allowed_cors | A list of origins which can call the api. They must be seperated by the allowed_cors_separator and formatted according to the spring documentation | * |
| allowed_cors_separator | The separator used for splitting the list of origins in allowed_cors (regex) | , |
| server.port | The port that will be used by the api | 8080 |
| model_templates | The list of model templates which should be used when adding new models | <Climate_Archive_Model_Template>/<Climate_Archive_Field_Template>.nc |
| model_templates_separator | The separator used for splitting the list of model templates (regex) | , |
| fields | The list of fields the server will use to fetch model .nc files | ann,jan,feb,mar,apr,may,jun,jul,aug,sep,oct,nov,dec |
| fields_separator | The separator used for splitting the list of fields (regex) | , |
| variables | The list of variables the server fetches for each model | temp_mm_1_5m,precip_mm_srf |
| variables_separator | The separator used for splitting the list of variables (regex) | , |
When making any changes to the config file any instances of the server must be restarted for the changes to have any effect. If using a linux service this can be done by running systemctl restart <service name>
To enable HTTPS on the server a security certificate must be created.
This must be saved in a keystore in the same directory as the .jar file.
Then in the application.properties file set the following properties:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| server.ssl.key-store-type | The format of the keystore |
| server.ssl.key-store | The path to the keystore containing the certificate |
| server.ssl.key-store-password | The password for the keystore |
| server.ssl.key-alias | The alias mapped to the certificate |
| server.ssl.key-password | The password used to generate the certificate |
| server.ssl.enabled | Whether to enable https. Set this to true |
This will now block all requests using HTTP and require HTTPS