Processing of climate data is often connected with big data processing, but a frequent problem is that users of the processing outcome are not optimally-equipped with appropriate hardware (computing and storage facilities) nor programming experience for software development to perform the processes themself. Web Processing Services (WPS) can close this gap and offer users a valuable practical tool to process and analyze big data. WPS represents an interface to perform processes over the HTTP network protocol, enabling users to trigger specific processes over a website. The appropriate processes are predefined, together with access to the relevant data archives where appropriate data are provided. This presentation is an introduction to the birdhouse project which provides WPS for climate data processing. Besides calling the WPS with Python libraries, birdhouse provides easy-to-use user-interfaces (web-based and command-line) to run WPS processes and combine them with climate data. The provided processes are reaching from simple climate metadata checks to complex climate impact models used e.g. in agriculture or forestry. The birdhouse is conform with the standardization defined by the Open Spatial Consortium (OGC) allowing combination with WPS from other institutions to establish a network of computing providers. |