This past summer VPOL staff Angela Badke and Annelise Doll completed a pilot project to deposit 2 TBs of research data on Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech. Over several months, the team worked with Pengfei Xue, CEGE faculty and GLRC Associate Director, and CEGE graduate student Miraj Kayastha to provide worldwide access to the GLARM-Proj1 dataset on Michigan Tech’s institutional repository. This dataset delivers a comprehensive outlook on the future of the North American Great Lakes under climate change. Since the first file from this dataset was available for download in May, files have been downloaded nearly 2000 times from users across 43 countries.
The GLARM-Proj1 dataset represents a significant advancement in Great Lakes climate research, offering a continuous, high-resolution climate projection spanning from 1981 to 2099. Unlike previous projections, which were fragmented and relied on simpler one-dimensional lake models to model the Great Lakes, GLARM-Proj1 uses a sophisticated regional climate modeling system with a two-way coupled three-dimensional (3D) lake model, better capturing the complex interactions between the lakes, atmosphere, and land. GLARM-Proj1 uniquely offers daily outputs of 3D lake temperature, along with two-dimensional fields for lake ice cover and 2-meter air temperature, dynamically downscaled from three global climate models under multiple future emission scenarios. By addressing the long-standing data gap for publicly accessible high-resolution 3D projections of the Great Lakes, GLARM-Proj1 equips scientists, stakeholders, and policymakers with robust, actionable information essential for planning and adaptation efforts in response to climate change impacts on the Great Lakes.]
Explore this collection on Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech here. View the dashboard of usage statistics, available for all content deposited on Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech, here.
Depositing a dataset of this size provided valuable insights into how we at the VPOL can better tailor our institutional repository services to meet our patrons’ needs. To ensure excellent, expedient service to the Michigan Tech community, the VPOL has refined the Digital Commons @ Michigan Tech Policies for Data to align data limits with the platform’s strengths. The VPOL welcomes questions, comments, and inquiries at library@mtu.edu as we continue enhancing our services.