CONTACT: Patricia Viets FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(301) 457-5005 12/14/95
The National Climatic Data Center, the world's largest active archive of weather data, has published a comprehensive new guide to obtaining weather and climate data from across the United States and from around the world, the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.
The "Products and Services" guide provides details concerning NCDC's on-line systems, CD-ROMs, specialized products, digital datasets, and publications.
The guide describes how certain weather and climate data can be accessed through the World Wide Web. NCDC's on-line data include: satellite data and inventories, Global Summary of the Day (GSOD) daily data for 8,000 worldwide stations, and monthly precipitation data for 7,000 active stations around the country. Additional products and publications can be accessed as well. NCDC also has an option called "Interactive Visualization of Climate Data." This graphic interface allows users to plot selected climatological parameters for stations/areas of interest. The WWW address is: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
NCDC's CD-ROM products include the International Station Meteorological Climate Summary, the National Climate Information Disc, the Solar and Meteorological Surface Observational Network, the Global Daily Summary, and a host of others to satisfy everyone from the weather hobbyist to the most sophisticated scientist.
NCDC archives weather data obtained by NOAA's National Weather Service, military services, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Coast Guard, as well as data from voluntary cooperative observers. As operator of the World Data Center-A for Meteorology, which provides for international data exchange, NCDC also collects data from around the world. The center has more than 150 years of data on hand, including satellite weather images back to 1960, with 55 gigabytes -- equivalent to 18 million pages -- of new information added each day.
To obtain a free copy of "Products and Services," call the Climate Services Branch of NCDC at 704-271-4800; fax: 704-271-4876; or e-mail: orders@ncdc.noaa.gov.
To request a copy by mail, contact NCDC at the following
address: National Climatic Data Center
151 Patton Avenue, Room 120
Asheville, NC 28801-5001