The Earth is a living system that continuously reshapes itself through climatolgical and geological changes. Powerful events including hurricanes and other great storms, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides, and droughts can be beneficial in bringing much-needed rainfall, altering the land, and bringing about evolutionary changes to organisms over time. But, particularly as the human population encroaches into regions of high risk for the occurence of a natural hazard event, the end result of a great storm or geological phenomenon can be massive damage to both property and life.

A diverse group of NOAA researchers collect, archive, and anyalyze natural hazard data in collaboration with many other Federal, state, and local agencies and organizations. By careful examination and analyses of both historical and real-time data, scientists can aid in the protection of property and in reducing the accompanying injuries, trauma, and deaths that occur as a result of a natural hazard event. Rigorous monitoring and studying of geological and meteorological conditions in the U.S. and worldwide has enabled the United States to develop some of the best predictive capabilities in the world. This helps prevent catastrophic loss of life and aids the efforts of those agencies which deal directly with an ongoing crisis, both domestically and internationally.

The National Oceanographic Data Center holds global physical, chemical, and biological oceanographic data sets that can be utilized by researchers and hazard management agencies which research and track extreme natural events. The NOAA Marine Environmental Buoy Database holds wind, wave, and other marine data collected by the NOAA National Data Buoy Center (NDBC). More data holdings of interest to natural hazard researchers include ocean current, satellite, sea level, wave, and temperature data.

NODC's Ocean Climate Laboratory is investigating interannual-to-decadal ocean climate variability using historical oceanographic data, and building scientifically, quality-controlled global oceanographic databases.

» Links to Natural Hazards Data in NOAA

• NOAAWatch - NOAA's All Hazards Monitor
• NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration - protects coastal and marine resources, mitigates threats, reduces harm, and restores ecological function.
• National Climatic Data Center - the world's largest archive of historical weather data and information.
• National Weather Service - realtime weather data, forecasts, and warnings.
• National Data Buoy Center - meteorlogocal and oceanographic data from coastal buoys.
• National Hurricane Center - tropical cyclone systems and forecasts.
• Climate Prediction Center - is responsible for assessing and forecasting the impacts of short-term climate variability and El Niño conditions.
• El Niño Theme page - El Niño and La Niña observations and forecasts.
• NOAA's Satellite Website - data, products, event imagery, forecasting, and operations.
• The Earth's Ozone Layer - Ozone depletion, monitoring, and research.
• Tsunami Research Program - improving tsunami detection, warning and mitigation.

» NODC Resources

- Beach Temperatures
- Coastal Buoy Data
- Data types and products
- Archive of Original Data
- World Ocean Database
- CD-ROMs/DVDs
- Publications