A Systematic Approach to Building Climate Data Records (CDRs)

NOAA established a satellite Climate Data Record Program (CDRP) at its National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) to provide a systematic process flow to generate sustained and authoritative climate information from satellite data. The CDRP implements a unique approach in archiving not only the data products themselves, but also the software, ancillary data, and documentation which allow full transparency into how the CDR was created. CDRP guidelines align to production guidelines from Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and WMO's Sustained, Coordinated Processing of Environmental Satellite Data for Climate Monitoring (SCOPE-CM) activity. Best practices, such as common maturity assessments, guidelines, and standards, are employed to facilitate both the transition of research algorithms to operational software, and the long-term maintenance of the software. The sustained production of multi-decadal inter-calibrated satellite CDRs feed directly into climate applications and tools for ease of use across a broad community of users.