INFORMATION SHEET ON NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC DATA CENTRE USA

Name of centre:
U.S. National Oceanographic Data Centre

Full address:
NOAA/NESDIS E/OC
1315 East West Highway, 4th Floor
Silver Spring, MD 20910-3282
USA

Communication:
Telephone: +1 301-713-3270
FAX: +1 301-713-3300
Electronic:services@nodc.noaa.gov
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov

Contact person:
Henry. R Frey

Background and role:
The U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) holds the world's largest collection of publicly available oceanographic data. The main NODC facility is located at the NOAA building complex in Silver Spring, Maryland. NODC Liaison Offices are collocated with major oceanographic research laboratories in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; Miami, Florida; La Jolla, California; Seattle, Washington; and Honolulu, Hawaii. The NODC also operates World Data Center A, Oceanography.

The NODC is one of the national data centers within the:

• National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)
  
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
  
• U.S. Department of Commerce

National activities:
The NODC holds physical, chemical, and biological oceanographic data collected by U.S. Federal agencies, including the Department of Defense (primarily the U.S. Navy); State, and local government agencies; universities and research institutions; and private industry. NODC does not conduct any data collection programs of its own; it serves solely as a repository and dissemination facility for data collected by others. The NODC provides data management support for major ocean science projects such as TOGA (Tropical Ocean .-.Global Atmosphere), WOCE (World Ocean Circulation Experiment), and JGOFS (Joint Global Ocean Flux Study). The National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) provides customers with access to global databases of physical, chemical, and biological ocean data, as well as to numerous individual data sets and data products. New technology - primarily CD-ROM and the Internet - have made the environmental data resources of the NODC and the other NOAA data centers more easily accessible to more users than ever before. Today, the NODC's data holdings are physically distributed at several sites, and data may be available in more than one format or from more than one source. Therefore, users now have more flexibility and more options to consider in obtaining NODC data. Through its World Wide Web site, the NODC provides information about or links to all NODC data resources and data products.

The NODC holds data from the ocean water column extending from the sea surface to the sea floor. Marine geological and geophysical data such as sediment data, bathymetry data, or underway gravity or magnetics data are held by the NOAA National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), Boulder, Colorado. Although the NODC holds some surface marine meteorological data, weather and climate data are primarily the responsibility of the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), Asheville, North Carolina. Finally, glaciological data are held by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) which is operated for the NGDC by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder.

International Activities:
The U.S. NODC participates in international oceanographic data exchange activities that help it fulfill its mission. Cooperation with international organizations and with foreign data centers has enabled the NODC to augment its data holdings with valuable foreign data collected worldwide and to ensure that U.S. oceanographic data are available to the global ocean community.

The NODC provides facilities and support for the collocated World Data Center A (WDCA) for Oceanography, one component of the World Data System. The World Data Center System is a network of discipline sub-centers operating under the guidance of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). There are two other World Data Centers for Oceanography: WDC-B, Oceanography in Obninsk, Russia, and WDC-D, Oceanography in Tianjin, Peoples Republic of China.

The NODC serves as the U.S. focal point for data exchange activities conducted under the purview of the Working Committee on International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE) of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), a subsidiary body within the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. The NODC also supports oceanographic data exchange through participation with the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES).

When it was established in 1961, the U.S. NODC was the first such organization in the world. Today there are oceanographic data centers and similar organizations in over 40 countries. In addition to data exchanges carried out through international organizations, the NODC also conducts bilateral data exchanges with data centers in dozens of countries.

Plans for new activities:

• produce a series of CD-ROMs to be called the World Ocean Database 1997 containing all of the historical oceanographic data profiles in the NODC/WDCA archives including the data collected through the Global Oceanographic Data Archaeology and Rescue Project (GODAR)
  
• make available online the prototype version of the NODC Catalog which will enable users to conduct searches to see if the NODC holds data sets of interest
  
• increase NODC's responsiveness to coastal ocean data customer requirements, including customers within other NOAA programs; provide additional opportunities for NOAA to form partnerships and
  
• joint ventures with its partners in the coastal ocean community; increase the knowledge and
  
• awareness of NOAA's activities within the coastal ocean community

• Gulf of Mexico Hydrographic and Marine Mammal Data
  
• Atlas of Surface Marine Data 1994
  
• Ocean Current Drifter Data
  
• World Ocean Atlas CD-ROM Series
  
• Sea Level Data
  
• Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) - Chesapeake Bay Region (1984-1989)
  
• GEOSAT Global Wind/Wave Data
  
• NODC Taxonomic Code Version 8.0
  
• NOAA Marine Environmental Buoy Database
  
• Oceanographic Station Profile Time Series
  
• GEOSAT Altimeter Geophysical Data Records for the Geodetic Mission
  
• GEOSAT Altimeter Crossover Differences from the Geodetic Mission
  
• GEOSAT Altimeter Data (T2 GDRS) from the Exact Repeat Mission
  
• NSWC Moored ADCP Data 1994-1995
  
• Global Ocean Temperature and Salinity Profiles
  
• Customized CD-ROM Datasets
  

Data holdings (digital):
Oceanographic Profile Data

• Ocean temperature, salinity, oxygen, nutrients, and other parameters versus depth

• Oceanographic and marine meteorological data from NOAA buoys and coastal stations

• Time series of hourly, daily, and monthly values of sea level from stations primarily in the tropical and subtropical oceans.

• Surface and subsurface current data from current meters, current drifters, ADCP instruments, or other methods

• Ocean remote sensing data and products from missions such Geosat and TOPEX/POSEIDON

• Sea surface temperature analyses and other products for U.S. coastal regions derived from AVHRR data collected by polar-orbiting satellites

• Marine physical, chemical, and biological data primarily from major environmental assessment programs conducted during the 1970s and 1980s in selected US coastal and outer continental shelf areas

• Data sets stored in originator formats (usually for small areas/time periods) USA

Exchange media:
Each year the NODC responds to thousands of requests for oceanographic data and information. Copies of specified data sets or data selected from the NODC's archive databases can be provided on magnetic media or on CD-ROM. Moderately.-.sized data sets can also be transmitted over computer networks via ftp. NODC data products are provided at prices set in accordance with Department of Commerce and NOAA policy guidelines.