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World Data System

The World Data System(link is external) is an interdisciplinary body of the International Science Council(link is external) working to provide universal, equitable access to data around the world. WDS members are part of a collaborative effort to create a globally interoperable data system that incorporates emerging technologies and stewardship practices to ensure the long term preservation, accessibility, and usability of archived data.

NCEI hosts and operates World Data Centers and Services for Geophysics, Meteorology, Oceanography, and Paleoclimatology in accordance with WDS principles. Each center and service acquires, catalogs, and archives a discipline specific collection of datasets, and develops products and applications designed to meet the information needs of resource managers, policy makers, researchers, educators, and the general public around the world.

World Data System

 

The World Data Service for Oceanography at Silver Spring, Maryland (formerly the World Data Center) archives a wide range of historic and current oceanographic data in the World Ocean Database, a global inventory of profile oceanographic physical, chemical, and plankton measurements that offers extensive, detailed documentation at given locations and dates. 

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The World Data Service for Paleoclimatology at Boulder, Colorado (formerly the World Data Center) archives paleoclimate data derived from natural sources such as tree rings, ice cores, corals, and ocean and lake sediments. These proxy climate data include geophysical or biological measurements, as well as reconstructed climate variables such as temperature and precipitation that describe climate change patterns over decades, centuries, and millennia.

Data

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Core Trustworthy Data Repository Requirements (CTDRR) Compliance Documents

NOAA Administrative Order 212-15

This NOAA Administrative Order (NAO) establishes the Department of Commerce (DOC) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Environmental Data Management Policy. This policy provides high-level direction that guides procedures, decisions, and actions regarding environmental data and information management throughout NOAA. 

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NOAA Environmental Data Management Committee (EDMC) Data Management Planning Procedural Directive

The EDMC coordinates the development of NOAA's environmental data management strategy, and policy, and provides guidance to promote consistent implementation across NOAA, on behalf of the NOAA Observing Systems Committee and NOAA Chief Information Officer Council.  The EDMC Data Management Planning Procedural Directive supports NAO 212-15 by providing detailed guidance on what agencies in NOAA are required to write Data Management Plans for data production and collection programs and systems.

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NOAA Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS) Environmental Data Management Planning Policy, NPD 6010.01A (pdf)

NESDIS is NCEI’s parent organization.  The purpose of NPD 6010.01A is to define requirements for the management of data and information generated by NESDIS Observing Systems and associated Data Management Systems, and thereby ensure that NESDIS Environmental Data are properly planned and supported throughout their life-cycle. This document also designates NCEI as the official archive of NOAA.

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The NESDIS 2016 5-Year Strategic Plan (pdf)

This plan documents the NESDIS long-term commitment to provide secure and timely access to global environmental data.

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NOAA Records Schedule

This document specifies the retention schedules for the various types of environmental data.

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NCEI Archive Collecting Policy

General policy and guidance for collecting and archiving data at NCEI.

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2013 U.S. Open Data Policy: Managing Information as an Asset

This memorandum (M-13-13) from the Office of Management and Budget directs US federal agencies to “manage information as an asset throughout its life-cycle to promote openness and interoperability, and properly safeguard systems and information” and to make “information resources accessible, discoverable, and usable by the public.”

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NOAA Procedure for Scientific Records Appraisal and Archive Approval

This document defines the procedure that NOAA will use to identify, appraise, and decide what scientific records are preserved in a NOAA archive. The procedure applies to accepting or rejecting newly acquired scientific records for a NOAA archive and also to retaining or disposing of existing records already held in a NOAA archive.

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