The NOAA climate services portal: a new centralized resource for distributed climate information

With the rapid rise in the development of Web technologies and climate services across NOAA, there has been an increasing need for greater collaboration regarding NOAA's online climate services. The drivers include the need to enhance NOAA's web presence in response to customer requirements, emerging sectoral needs, the many aspects of climate variability and change, and the importance of educational and research requirements for climate services.

To address these needs, NOAA (during fiscal year 2009) embarked upon an ambitious program to develop a NOAA Climate Services Portal (NCSP). Four NOAA offices are leading the effort: 1) the NOAA Climate Program Office (CPO), 2) the National Ocean Service's Coastal Services Center (CSC), 3) the National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center (CPC), and 4) the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service's (NESDIS) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Other offices and programs are also contributing in many ways to the effort. A prototype NCSP was placed online for public access in Fall 2009. This website only scratches the surface of the many climate services across NOAA, but this effort, via direct user engagement, will gradually expand the scope and breadth of NCSP to greatly enhance the accessibility and usefulness of NOAA's climate data and services.