World Weather Watch and the Cold War: Trading Data Among 'The Space Powers and Others'

In the summer of 1964, Soviet and American weather services set up a data link between Moscow and Greenbelt, MD. This so-called “Cold Line” provided the groundwork for a global meteorological data exchange program known as the World Weather Watch (WWW). Under the auspices of the United Nation's World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the WWW centralized and redistributed weather data derived from ground and satellite observations while training meteorologists in the most up-to-date methods of weather prediction.

This paper will explore the circumstances that led the US and Soviet Union to set the WWW in motion— framing their national satellite networks as international assets. Based on archival research at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, papers of Weather Bureau officials, presidential archives, and research conducted at the UN's World Meteorological Organization Archives, this essay seeks to more finely articulate the technical and diplomatic reasoning that led to global collaboration in the WWW.

What stakes did nations identify in trading satellite data? Exploring the technological details of these systems reveal multiple symbiotic relationships among Space Powers and Non-Space Powers. Atmospheric scientists overcame technical constraints in their satellite systems by swapping satellite data with other countries. At the same time they designed satellite instruments to accommodate the needs of users in the Developing World.

Through the 1960s and 1970s, the spirit of Cold War competition remained a life-giving element to the world's two space programs. Yet the Soviet-American competition for the ‘hearts and minds' of humanity permeated policy in manners far more complicated than races to launch satellites, erect space stations, or deliver humans to the moon. In the case of WWW, this competition manifested less in the desire to be the first to perform individual tasks (such as the moon race), than to function as a progressive and inclusive leaders in scientific affairs—to demonstrate ‘openness' in manner and in discipline.