Tracking and Establishing Provenance of Earth Science Datasets: A NASA-based Example

Information quality is of paramount importance to science. Accurate, scientifically vetted and statistically meaningful and, ideally, reproducible information engenders scientific trust and research opportunities. Therefore, so-called Highly Influential Scientific Assessments (HISA) such as the U.S. Third National Climate Assessment undergo a very rigorous process to ensure transparency and credibility. As an activity to support the transparency of such reports, the U.S. Global Change Research Program has developed the Global Change Information System (GCIS). Specifically related to the transparency of NCA3, a recent activity was carried out to trace the provenance as completely as possible for all figures in the NCA3 report that predominantly used NASA data. This paper discusses lessons learned from this activity that trace the provenance of NASA figures in a major HISA-class pdf report.