Error – data not found: Precarious data and architectures of the future
Can data from organizations as prominent as NASA vanish into thin air? A grass-roots initiative lead by scientists and researchers believes it just might, and is doing everything in its power to prevent this.
Climate change is a hot topic. It played a part in the debate leading to the recent US presidential election, but its reach and the attention it is getting go way beyond. The global scientific community is not only united in its conviction that anthropogenic climate change is real, but also working in collaboration and heavily relying on data to support its research.
Much of that data comes from organizations based in the US, such as NASA’s NOAA. Donald Trump, the US president elect, has repeatedly expressed his skepticism towards climate change. Could that have an impact on the availability of data for scientific research?
A group of scientists and researchers thinks so, and is working on ways to minimize the impact of such a prospect. Regardless of whether this turns out to be the case, data preservation is a significant topic going forward. We spoke with prominent members of the precarious data movement, as well as with researchers pioneering data preservation technologies, and here is what they had to say.
To begin with, could the prospect of data from organizations such as NOAA vanishing be real? Matt Price & Nick Shapiro, spokespeople for EDGI (Environmental Data & Governance Initiative) think that “this is hard to judge, but we have good reasons to believe at least some and likely a high percentage of data will disappear from public view.” Elaborating on these reasons, they cite: