Introduction

NOAA/NESDIS websites are provided as a public service by the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service. Information presented on these webpages is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.

NODC Disclaimer

Disclaimer of Liability
While NODC makes every effort to ensure that its databases are error-free, errors do occur. We ask that you notify us immediately of any errors that you discover in our data. We will make every effort to correct them.

With respect to documents available from this server, neither the United States Government nor any of its employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, including the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose; nor assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed; nor represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.

Disclaimer of Endorsement
Reference to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government. The views and opinions of authors expressed on the NODC Website do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.

Disclaimer for External Links
The appearance of external links on the NODC Web site does not constitute endorsement of external Web sites or the information, products, or services contained therein by the Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service/National Oceanographic Data Center. The National Oceanographic Data Center does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at external Web site locations. External links are provided for your convenience, and for reasons consistent with NODC's mission.

More on our linking policy:
While you are free to link from your Web site to NOAA's National Oceanographic Data Center, we do not participate in "link exchanges", nor do we add links that are not directly related to the primary mission of our data center.

For links that NODC provides to sites outside the control of the Federal government, the information or data must not be available from other Federal Internet sources. We notify our users of external links by using an orange asterisk (*) next to the link. In addition, the links to non-Federal sites must meet all of the following criteria 1) links are necessary for and material to the presentation of agency information or the delivery of services in the proper performance of an agency function, and; 2) reasonable steps are taken to ensure the presentation is accurate, relevant, timely, and complete, and; 3) reasonable steps are taken to assure that links remain active or otherwise continue to provide the level of quality (including objectivity, utility, and integrity) as intended by the data center and expected by its users.

As required by 17 U.S.C. 403, third parties producing copyrighted works consisting predominantly of the material produced by U.S. government agencies must provide notice with such work(s) identifying the U.S. Government material incorporated and stating that such material is not subject to copyright protection. The information on government web pages is in the public domain unless specifically annotated otherwise (copyright may be held elsewhere) and may therefore be used freely by the public.