Big data drives the development of Earth science

Big data is now a popular topic, becoming increasingly well known around the world, and yet the concept of big data and its implications are still novel. To discuss big data, it is appropriate to first talk about what is really meant by this term, and so to begin the first article in the inaugural issue of Big Earth Data, let us look at how data has become big data and why that is important. The amount of data in the world is exploding, as more and more people realize the potential of data and the benefit of incorporating it into different fields, such as science, industry, and government (The World Economic Forum, 2012). The International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts that by 2025 the so-called global datasphere will have grown to 163 zettabytes (ZB), which is 10 times the 16.1 ZB of data generated in 2016 (Reinsel, Gantz, & Rydning, 2017). By creating and employing advanced science and technology, humankind has a greater ability to collect and create data than ever before, and the benefits of data to societies are becoming more and more remarkable. But managing this volume of data can be a significant problem, and once the data-sets become too large to store and process with traditional information technology and techniques, they can be considered “big data”. The recent prolific creation of data marks humankind’s entrance into the era of big data. However, our ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data is improving thanks to advancements in the technologies and methods surrounding big data, and thus big data has begun to help us accelerate the pace of discovery in science (Office of Science & Technology Policy Executive Office of the President, 2012). The evolution of data to big data, and science to data-intensive science, has been recognized over the last decade in several milestone publications. Nature’s special issue on “Big Data” indicated that big data was already influencing the fields of natural science, social science, humanities, and engineering. Microsoft’s publication “The Fourth Paradigm: Data-Intensive Scientific Discovery” implicated big data in the establishment of a new scientific paradigm in which knowledge is discovered through the analysis of large data-sets. Science’s special issue entitled “Dealing with data” demonstrated the value of massive data processing to scientific research. The United Nations Global Pulse recognized the essential role of big data in the development of society as a whole, including in relation to science and technology, economics, and decision-making (Guo, Wang, Chen, & Liang, 2014). The Chinese Government has also paid attention to big data research, with the State Council releasing a report entitled “Action Plan for the Promotion of Big Data Development” in 2015, in which “Scientific Big Data” was specifically recognized (The State Council of China, 2015). These examples show us that big data is a new method for a new kind of science, where data drive the research, wherever that might lead. Big Earth Data refers to big data associated with the Earth sciences, derived from but not limited to Earth observation. Big Earth Data is characterized as being massive, multi-source, heterogeneous, multi-temporal, multi-scalar, highly dimensional, highly complex, nonstationary, and unstructured. It consists of all data related to the Earth, including the Earth’s interior, surface, atmosphere, and near-space environment. Following the lead of big data in other disciplines, Big Earth Data is the basis of data-intensive scientific discovery in the Earth sciences. The definition of big data usually includes the “three Vs” – Volume, Velocity, and Variety – and Big Earth Data has inherited these characteristics (Vorhies, 2014). Volume is a key contributor to