NOAA's Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP) paving the road for data stewardship

The Climate Database Modernization Program (CDMP) supports NOAA's mission to collect, integrate, assimilate, and effectively manage Earth observations on a global scale, ranging from atmospheric, weather, and climate observations to oceanic, coastal, and marine life observations. Many of NOAA's holdings were originally recorded on paper, film, and other fragile media, and stored at various facilities. CDMP's mission includes transforming these older observations to a more useful friendly and accessible digital media which will help meet the predicted demand for additional scientific baseline observations. Many significant decisions such as future energy use, climate, and infrastructure issues will depend on the accuracy and availability of this data for predictive modeling. The scientific community depends on the on-going work of CDMP to ensure that the hard-earned, irreplaceable research is protected, preserved and made available on-line. CDMP partners with four private sector contractors and have placed online over 54 million weather and environmental images, available to researchers around the world via the Internet. The amount of data online has grown from 1.75 terabytes in 2001 to over 14 terabytes in late 2010 and millions of pieces of data are still waiting to be digitized. This presentation will highlight several of the 97 various NOAA national and international data rescue projects under the CDMP program.