NASA's Atmospheric Science Data Center at the NASA Langley Research Center has developed a new state-of-the-art data archival, and distribution system to serve the atmospheric sciences data provider and user communities. The new system, called Archive – Next Generation (ANGe), is replacing two large-scale science data management systems, and is designed with a distributed, multi-tier, serviced-based, message oriented architecture enabling new methods for searching, accessing, and customizing data. The previous two systems required a user to actively manage a session in a web browser to sequentially search for and obtain data. The ANGe system is architected to allow programmatic calls to the archive via web services to obtain multiple data sets of interest to the user. Web service access to the archive enhances the user's ability to utilize multiple data sets managed at different locations via a Grid computing environment. This technology distributes computationally intensive data processing for large data sets, and greatly improves the efficiency of extracting smaller pieces of data of interest to a specific study. Geospatial metadata is managed in a PostGIS-enabled database, allowing for integration with mainstream GIS utilities and applications. The Atmospheric Science Data Center is also producing custom value-added data products and tailoring access to information and data to meet the needs of a diverse user community. Details of these new data access tools and capabilities, and planned enhancements will be discussed.

The Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) in Langley's Science Directorate leads NASA's program for the processing, archival and distribution of Earth science data in the areas of radiation budget, clouds, aerosols, and tropospheric chemistry. The Data Center was established in 1991 to support NASA's Earth Observing System and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. It is unique among NASA data centers in the size of its archive, cutting edge computing technology, and full range of data services. For more information regarding ASDC data holdings, documentation, tools and services, visit http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov