Abstract:
This project provides a common semantic framework for various Earth science initiatives. The semantic web is a transformation of the existing web that will enable software programs, applications, and agents to find meaning and understanding on web pages. SWEET developed these capabilities in the context of finding and using Earth science data and information.
The ontologies within
... the Semantic Web for Earth and Environmental Terminology (SWEET) provide an upper-level ontology for Earth system science. The SWEET ontologies include several thousand terms, spanning a broad extent of Earth system science and related concepts (such as data characteristics) using the OWL language. The ontologies can be downloaded from http://sweet.jpl.nasa.gov/sweet . To support such a large collection and adhere to the guiding principles, the concepts are divided, where possible, into orthogonal dimensions or facets in support of reductionism.
SWEET ontologies are written in the OWL ontology language. OWL is an XML language being adopted as a standard by the W3C. SWEET ontologies can be viewed using Internet Explorer 5 (or later) or Netscape 7. More specialized OWL-specific tools are available such as SWOOP or Protege. SWEET 2.0 is highly modular with nearly 100 ontologies organized by subject.
[Summary provided by NASA.] 
