Ontological Modeling of Climate Data to Improve Climate Analytics

Climate data is a valuable resource for understanding past weather patterns, assessing long-term climate trends, and conducting climate-related research. However, most existing knowledge graphs for climate data rely heavily on the standardized (per W3C recommendations) SOSA/SSN ontology, which can help improve general data accessibility, but typically overlooks the analytical applications of multisource climate data. To further enhance the accessibility of heterogeneous data for climate data analytics, this paper extends the CA ontology and implements a virtual knowledge graph for analytical applications. We emphasize the importance of incorporating observation metadata and geospatial representation into analytical applications. Through our study, we demonstrate the applicability of the proposed ontological model in deriving the ETCCDI indices. An example of the formation of the annual maximum daily temperature is given. Furthermore, we showcase the potential of LinkedGeoData in providing a more comprehensive geographical context for accessing climate data within the knowledge graph, leveraging the proposed ontological modeling and linked data principles.