Wayland, MA, July 1, 2005 – The Open Geospatial Consortium Inc. (OGC) has announced that July 24, 2005 will be the kickoff date for an OGC Interoperability Experiment to support open access to atmospheric and oceanographic modeling and simulation outputs.The GALEON (Gateway or Geo-interface for Air Land Earth Ocean NetCDF) Interoperability Experiment will implement a geo-interface to netCDF datasets via the OpenGIS(R) Web Coverage Server (WCS 1.0) protocol specification. The interface will provide interoperability among netCDF, OPeNDAP, ADDE, and THREDDS client/server and catalog protocols.The initiators of the Interoperability Experiment are: Unidata/UCAR (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research), IMAA-CNR (Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis of the Italian National Research Council), George Mason University, and the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Geospatial Interoperability Office. Other OGC members are encouraged to participate in or sign on as observers for this Interoperability Experiment.Organizations wishing to participate and that can meet the Requirements for Participation must notify the OGC before July 31 of their desire to participate. Requirements are that a participant must be or must become an OGC Member and that the organization must review and sign a Participant Agreement.Contact George Percivall at gpercivall@opengeospatial.org for further details.The OGC is an international industry consortium of more than 270 companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface specifications. OpenGIS® Specifications support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. The specifications empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. Visit the OGC website at http://www.opengeospatial.org.”