CAIT UPDATE
Tom
Dear friends of CAIT,
Several weeks ago, WRI's Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT) website suffered a malicious attack that took the site offline and resulted in a near total loss of our file system and database.
Since that time, we have been working hard to put CAIT back together. We were initially hopeful that we could rebuild the site as it was before the attack; however, this proved impossible. Therefore, instead of rebuilding the old, we've decided to invest in the new.
Even before the attack, we had begun crafting a vision for a new and better data platform. We are now putting all our efforts into building a site that will not only meet the same needs CAIT has met for many years, but also provide you with more data, advanced features, and an improved user experience. We expect to unveil the successor to CAIT sometime next year, and will continue to update you as we make progress.
Of course, we understand that CAIT's recent lack of availability has been an inconvenience. In the interest of continuing to provide you with the data that you rely on, we will upload the most frequently requested data sets and make them available for download at http://www.wri.org/tools/cait/. We will continue to update these files as new data becomes available.
We have appreciated your support over the years, and it is with our many dedicated users in mind that we embark on building a better CAIT.
For more information and regular updates, please visit http://www.wri.org/tools/cait/ or this GoogleGroup.
Sincerely,
The CAIT Team
Tom
Since we posted this announcement, we have received words of support from around the world, which we greatly appreciate. We have also seen suggestions that the CAIT hacking incident could have been motivated by an anti-climate change agenda, similar to the electronic theft of emails last year known as "Climategate."
We wanted to let you know that all the information we have indicates that the hack was simply an automated act of vandalism, identical to attacks on numerous other Web sites built with technology similar to CAIT's. Moreover, we've seen no evidence to suggest that CAIT was targeted specifically for its content or because of the work of the World Resources Institute.
Thanks again to all who have expressed support for CAIT through this challenging period, and keep an eye out for further updates soon.
CAIT
We're pleased to announce that our latest release of state and national greenhouse gas emissions data for the United States has been added to the Google Public Data Explorer.
The Public Data Explorer allows users to visualize CAIT data through several interactive charts and maps. Choose a slice of data to highlight, animate the changes in the data over time, or see all the states compared side-by-side by a variety of metrics. You can see a sample visualization and download the latest U.S. data on the temporary CAIT site.
We're also working hard to get the latest international GHG data, with coverage from 1850 to 2008, online, both for download and for use in the Public Data Explorer. We hope to have that data online as soon as the end of this week or early next, and we'll update you here when it's available.
CAIT
We've just added our latest international emissions numbers to the site and to the Google Public Data Explorer.
With the addition of this data, you can now see international GHG emissions figures from 1850-2008 in the form of interactive charts, maps, and animations.
You can see a sample visualization and download the latest international data on the temporary CAIT site.
CAIT
Happy New Year from the CAIT team! We are pleased to announce that the World Resources Institute has contracted with Seabourne Consulting, a company specializing in information management solutions, to build our new climate data site. They've already begun to craft the infrastructure for an improved online home for the GHG emissions data you rely on CAIT for, as well as new analysis tools and other related products. Work is expected to last until the late Spring or early Summer, at which time we look forward to unveiling the successor to CAIT. Of course, in the meantime, we will keep you updated on our temporary site on our progress and share previews of what WRI and Seabourne are building.
To make this project a success, we also need your help. The development of this new site is the perfect opportunity to reassess the needs and requirements of all of you in the CAIT community. What did you like about CAIT, and what would you change? What are the data challenges you encounter, and how can this new site best help you to overcome them? Below is a link to a short survey asking these and other questions that will help determine how WRI presents critical data sets online, from raw numbers to complex visualizations. Please take a moment to tell us how we can best share our data with you. Any responses you can provide would be greatly appreciated.