NOAA NCEI
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| NOAA NCEI | |
|---|---|
| Name | National Centers for Environmental Information |
| Native name | NCEI |
| Formed | 2015 |
| Predecessor | National Climatic Data Center; National Oceanographic Data Center; National Geophysical Data Center |
| Headquarters | Asheville, North Carolina |
| Employees | ~500 |
| Parent organization | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |
NOAA NCEI The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is a federal archival agency within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that preserves, manages, and provides public access to comprehensive environmental data. NCEI houses integrated archives spanning climatology, oceanography, geophysics, and paleoclimatology to support research, policy, and operational needs for agencies and institutions worldwide.
History
NCEI was established in 2015 as an amalgamation of legacy centers including the National Climatic Data Center, National Oceanographic Data Center, and National Geophysical Data Center, consolidating missions from organizations such as the United States Department of Commerce, National Weather Service, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, United States Geological Survey, and Environmental Protection Agency. Its antecedents trace to archival efforts like the World Data Center system, the International Geophysical Year, and programs coordinated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Global Climate Observing System, the World Meteorological Organization, and the International Oceanographic Commission. Over decades NCEI’s predecessors collaborated with research institutions including Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, NOAA Fisheries, Naval Research Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to expand holdings from expeditions such as the Challenger expedition legacy, deep-sea initiatives, polar campaigns with Antarctic Treaty signatories, and paleoclimate projects related to the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum and Little Ice Age studies.
Mission and Responsibilities
NCEI’s mission centers on stewardship of environmental data to support decision makers at White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, United States Congress, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and international partners like the United Nations Environment Programme and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Responsibilities include long-term preservation aligned with standards from the International Organization for Standardization, metadata protocols from the Open Geospatial Consortium, and data sharing frameworks used by the Group on Earth Observations, Global Earth Observation System of Systems, and Committee on Earth Observation Satellites. NCEI responds to operational needs for programs like the National Integrated Drought Information System, U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, Sea Level Rise assessments for coastal managers in locations from New York City to Bangkok, and supports hazard response for events such as Hurricane Katrina, the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, and major wildfire incidents in partnership with the United States Forest Service and National Interagency Fire Center.
Data Holdings and Archives
NCEI curates petabyte-scale archives encompassing historical surface observations from networks like the U.S. Cooperative Observer Program, upper-air records from Radiosonde launches, marine collections from programs such as World Ocean Circulation Experiment, and paleoclimate proxies including tree rings from International Tree-Ring Data Bank, ice cores from Greenland Ice Sheet Project, and coral records studied at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Geophysical datasets include geomagnetic records linked to the International Geomagnetic Reference Field, seismic catalogs related to the United States Seismic Network, and bathymetry compiled alongside the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans. NCEI also archives satellite-derived products originating from platforms like NOAA-20, GOES-R, Landsat missions operated with USGS, and international satellites such as METOP and Sentinel-3. Holdings support climate indices used in publications by American Meteorological Society, National Academy of Sciences, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and regional assessments like the Fourth National Climate Assessment.
Services and Products
NCEI distributes datasets, tools, and publications including gridded climate normals, global temperature analyses used by Berkeley Earth and Hadley Centre, digital bathymetric models utilized by National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and paleoclimate reconstructions cited in journals like Nature and Science. Services involve data access portals and APIs interoperable with systems from Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and research platforms at University of Colorado Boulder and NOAA Central Library. Products support modeling communities such as those using Community Earth System Model, Weather Research and Forecasting Model, and operational centers like the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and National Hurricane Center. NCEI provides certified climate services for sectors including agriculture stakeholders represented by United States Department of Agriculture, coastal planners in municipalities like Miami, and insurance analysts following guidance from Insurance Information Institute.
Research and Partnerships
NCEI collaborates with academic partners including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University as well as national laboratories such as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Partnerships span international programs like Global Ocean Observing System, International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, and data initiatives under the Group on Earth Observations. Research supported by NCEI underpins studies published in Journal of Climate, Geophysical Research Letters, and Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, and informs interagency assessments with National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Department of Energy modeling efforts for decadal prediction and paleoclimate synthesis projects examining events such as the Younger Dryas and Medieval Warm Period.
Infrastructure and Technology
NCEI operates high-performance computing and storage infrastructure co-located with facilities in Asheville, North Carolina and data centers partnering with NOAA's Central Library, commercial cloud providers, and university data centers like Purdue University and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Technologies include standardized metadata frameworks such as Climate and Forecast (CF) metadata conventions, data formats like netCDF and GRIB, web services compatible with Open Geospatial Consortium standards, and archival practices intersecting with Digital Preservation initiatives. Infrastructure supports interoperability with operational systems including the National Weather Service modeling chain, the Global Telecommunication System, and research platforms used by the Integrated Ocean Observing System.