Historical Space Weather Datasets within NOAA
Abstract
The National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) is primarily responsible for scientific data stewardship of operational space weather data from NOAA's fleet of environmental satellites in geostationary and polar, low-earth orbits. In addition to this and as the former World Data Center for Solar Terrestrial Physics from 1957 to 2011 NGDC acquired a large variety of solar and space environmental data in differing formats including paper records and on film. Management of this heterogeneous collection of environmental data is a continued responsibility of NGDC as a participant in the new World Data System. Through the former NOAA Climate Data Modernization Program many of these records were converted to digital format and are readily available online. However, reduced funding and staff have put a strain on NGDC's ability to effectively steward these historical datasets, some of which are unique and, in particular cases, were the basis of fundamental scientific breakthroughs in our understanding of the near-earth space environment. In this talk, I will provide an overview of the historical space weather datasets which are currently managed by NGDC and discuss strategies for preserving these data during these fiscally stressing times.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUFMSA33A1988D
- Keywords:
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- 7529 SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY Photosphere;
- 7514 SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY Energetic particles;
- 1599 GEOMAGNETISM AND PALEOMAGNETISM General or miscellaneous;
- 7974 SPACE WEATHER Solar effects