NOAA Open Data Dissemination Democratizes Access to Environmental Data

NOAA Open Data Dissemination (NODD), a NOAA enterprise program, has made available its data via the cloud, thus democratizing access and broaderning reach to a diverse set of users. With over 40 petabytes of data via Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services, NODD not only takes advantage of the cloud’s scalability, it incorporates the FAIR data principles and supports both the Open Data Act and the Evidence Act requirements. This democratized access empowers researchers, data scientists and decision-makers to advance scientific research, accelerate climate information solutions and services with the ability to integrate diverse datasets, and facilitate interdisciplinary research between physical science and socio-economic decision. It also promotes transparency and inclusivity and fosters cross-disciplinary and cross-border cooperation supporting researchers in science and the private sector.

NODD works closely with NOAA Line Office data owners and cloud partners to reach and build a democratized user community that catalyzes innovation and strives to be weather and climate-ready. NODD's user engagement efforts reach diverse and different stakeholders, that include NOAA principle scientists, or cloud service providers (CSPs), as appropriate, and end users who describe the use case and share their experience with NOAA data in the cloud.

NODD technical and user engagement activities supports democratization of NOAA data and supports alignment with the open data philosophy, promoting transparency, accountability, and the free exchange of information. In addition to recent Program developments and recent datasets in the cloud, this presentation highlights outcomes from user engagement activities, drawing from user perspectives from a recent activity called NODD Office Hours. The presentation provides perspectives and feedback from users as they share the benefits of democratized cloud access.