National Centers for Environmental Information

National Centers for Environmental Information
Agency overview
Formed 2015 (2015)
Preceding agencies
Jurisdiction United States government
Headquarters Asheville, North Carolina
Agency executive
Parent agency National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service
Website http://www.ncei.noaa.gov

National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina, is the world's largest active archive of environmental data. In 2015 it was established from the merger of the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) and the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).[1] The current director is Thomas R. Karl,[2] who was the director of NCDC before merger.

Merger

The establishment of NCEI was rooted in the dramatic increase in the demand for environmental data and information in the years preceding 2015. In order to meet the demand, the three existing data centers are merged in accordance with the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, Public Law 113-235:[1]

  1. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)
  2. National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC)
  3. National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), which includes the National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC)

NCEI was launched on April 22, 2015.[3] The transition is expected to finish beyond 2020, while at the meantime none of the existing products and services will be affected by the merger.[1][4] Existing URLs, links and domain names for the data centers will remain accessible, even though a plan will be developed to consolidate the domains, also any change will be advertised and appropriate redirects will be created.[5]

Archived data

The graph from a study by NCEI

NCEI hosts and provides access to over 20 petabytes of comprehensive atmospheric, coastal, oceanic, and geophysical digital data[6] e.g. ocean depth information, sun surface data, million-year-old sediment records and near real-time satellite images.[3]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "About the National Centers for Environmental Information". NCEI. Retrieved August 20, 2015.
  2. ↑ "NESDIS Organizational Chart as of 02/ 19/ 15". NOAA. February 19, 2015. Retrieved August 20, 2015.
  3. 1 2 "National Centers for Environmental Information". NCDC. April 22, 2015. Retrieved August 20, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Coming Soon: NCEI". NCDC. April 3, 2015. Retrieved August 20, 2015.
  5. ↑ "About Us". NCDC. Retrieved August 20, 2015.
  6. ↑ ,"National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)". NCEI. Retrieved August 20, 2015.

External links

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