Making Long-term Preservation Accessible, Independently Understandable and Reproducible

For data to be considered trustworthy, data must be accessible, independently understandable and reproducible. The NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) has refined the art of long-term preservation and stewardship practices throughout the lifecycle of various types of data. NCDC can help navigate and make the complicated world of standards user friendly for any data provider. Using our Advanced Tracking and Resource tool for Archive Collections (ATRAC) system data providers can initiate the archiving process and create complete International Organization for Standardization (ISO) metadata records. All of which, will support the data to be accessible, independently understandable and reproducible in a easy to understand format for all types of users. NCDC can issue a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for a published data set. DOI's are no longer just for scientific papers, but now to preserve data sets in a more permanent and traceable format. DOI's are minted for stand alone data sets using the metadata created in ATRAC. NCDC also offers different levels of access: FTP, OPeNDAP/THREDDS, Web Mapping Services, online bulk orders and many more. If the data is in a netCDF format NCDC can offer Climate and Forecast (CF) convention reviews to ensure the standard is applied accurately. All of the services offered follow standards/directives such as the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) - Reference Model (ISO 14721) and NOAA Procedural Directives to ensure long-term stewardship for the Nation's resource of global climate and weather related data and information for a broad spectrum of users.