Big Data Project
NOAA generates tens of terabytes of data a day from satellites, radars, ships, weather models, and other sources. While these data are publicly available, it is difficult to download and work with such high volumes. NOAA’s vast wealth of data therefore represents a substantial untapped economic opportunity. The NOAA Big Data Project (BDP) was created to explore the potential benefits of storing copies of key observations and model outputs in the Cloud to allow computing directly on the data without requiring further distribution. Such an approach could help form new lines of business and economic growth while making NOAA's data more easily accessible to the American public.
The BDP seeks to combine three incredibly powerful resources: NOAA's expansive collection of high-quality environmental data and expertise, the vast infrastructure and scalable computing capabilities of our industry collaborators, and the innovative energy of the American economy. The BDP, through Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs), currently works with five infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) providers to broaden access to NOAA’s data resources. This collaboration is designed to facilitate full and open data access at no net cost to the taxpayer, and to foster innovation by bringing together the tools necessary to make NOAA's data more readily accessible.
