World Data Center System

Data constitute the raw material of scientific understanding. The World Data Center system works to guarantee access to solar, geophysical and related environmental data. It serves the whole scientific community by assembling, scrutinizing, organizing and disseminating data and information.

Please note that, as of the end of 2008 following the ICSU General Assembly in Maputo, Mozambique, the Panel on World Data Centers no longer exists and that the World Data Centers will be incorporated into the new ICSU World Data System (WDS) in 2009. A similar procedure will involve members of the Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical data-analysis Services (FAGS) grouping of ICSU. In addition, it is envisaged that additional (i.e. non-FAGS and non-WDC) organizations will be encouraged to join the new WDS. When the WDS has its own web site, this WDC web site will be discontinued. At the time of writing, a Transition Team composed of former WDC Panel and FAGS Council members is discussing how best to organize the transition arrangements to the new WDS without interruptions in the services provided by existing organizations.

The World Data Center System

The World Data Center (WDC) system was created to archive and distribute data collected from the observational programs of the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year. Originally established in the United States, Europe, Russia, and Japan, the WDC system has since expanded to other countries and to new scientific disciplines. The WDC system now includes 52 Centers in 12 countries. Its holdings include a wide range of solar, geophysical, environmental, and human dimensions data. These data cover timescales ranging from seconds to millennia and they provide baseline information for research in many ICSU disciplines, especially for monitoring changes in the geosphere and biosphere—gradual or sudden, foreseen or unexpected, natural or man-made.

WDCs are funded and maintained by their host countries on behalf of the international science community. They accept data from national and international scientific or monitoring programs as resources permit. All data held in WDCs are available for no more than the cost of copying and sending the requested information.

Now Available:
The WDC Reports section was updated in January 2006, now providing access to WDC Panel Agenda and Minutes, as well as the report from the WDC Modernization Task Team, Annual Reports for 2002, and the WDC Constitution.

URL: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/wdc/