Latest developments in the display of large-scale ionospheric and thermospheric data sets

Over the past decade, data base sizes have continually increased and will continue to do so in the future. This problem of size is further compounded because the trend in present-day studies is to use data from many different locations and different instruments and then compare it with data from global scale physical models. The latter produce data bases of comparable if not even larger size. Much of the data can be viewed as 'image' time sequences and is most readily viewed on color display terminals. These data sets reside in national or owner-generated data bases linked together by computer networks. As the size increases, just moving this data around, taking 'quick-looks' at the data, or even storing it locally become severe problems compromising the scientific return from the data. Is the present-day technology with these analysis techniques being used in the best way? What are the prospects for reducing the storage and transmission size of the data sets? Examples of such problems and potential solutions are described in this paper.