GIS & IT

To understand the rationale behind a GIS Demonstration Project, it is useful to distinguish between geographic information systems and other information systems employed in the atmospheric sciences, which we will refer to Atmospheric Information Systems (AIS). Both GIS and AIS fit the classic definition of a geographic information system in that they both are used for managing, analyzing, and visualizing geo-located data.

GIS represents a class of information system that has general purpose in its design. In contrast to GIS, AIS represent a more specialized class of information system developed particularly for the atmospheric sciences.

Decomposing software information systems into their two primary components – a data component and a process component – allows us to identify four interoperability goals grouped by user community;