WORLD DATA CENTER FOR PALEOCLIMATOLOGY

Dr. David Anderson, Director

Tel: +1 303 497 6237

WDC for Paleoclimatology

Fax: +1 303 497 6513

NOAA/NGDC Code E/CC23

E-mail: david.m.anderson@noaa.gov

325 Broadway

Home Page: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/datalist.html

Boulder, CO 80305-3328

Maintained by: U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The WDC for Paleoclimatology, Boulder is operated by the National Climatic Data Center and collocated with the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, CO.

Summary of Data Held: Estimates of past environments derived from tree rings, ice cores, marine and lake sediments, etc. Most data are for the Quaternary (the past 700,000 years), some for earlier climates. Archives include the raw data used to reconstruct climate variables. Examples include:
Tree rings Time series of ring-width and wood density. Global distribution, primarily mid- to high-latitudes, spanning up to 10,000 years BP.
Ocean Sediments: Geochemical measurements (Cd/Ca, 14C, C and O isotopes), counts of fossil plankton, and estimates of temperature, salinity, ocean circulation. Global distribution, spanning 500,000 yr BP.
Lake and Mire Sediments: Sediment accumulation, geochemical measure-ments, pollen and plankton, reconstructions of vegetation, precipitation, lake levels, temperatures, etc. Global distribution, spanning 20,000 yr BP.
Ice Cores: Aerosols, stable isotopes, atmospheric trace-gas content, etc. Global distribution, spanning 300,000 yr BP.
Corals: Geochemical analyses of banded corals. Distribution: tropical oceans, spanning the last several hundred years BP.
Climate Forcing and Boundary Conditions: Volcanic aerosols, solar variability, insolation, ice volume, sea level, land surface albedo, atmospheric trace gas content. Global distribution, spanning 5,000,000 BP.
Numerical Model Simulations: Input and results from computer climate model simulations for specific intervals and model sensitivity experiments to examine the role of climate forcing. Global distribution, spanning 20,000 yr BP and older intervals.
Climate Reconstructions: Raw and gridded map reconstructions of sea level, vegetation, albedo, temperature, precipitation, circulation patterns. Global distribution, spanning 20,000 yr BP, older intervals including the last interglacial, 126,000 yr BP).

User Services: The WDC for Paleoclimatology is located in the David Skaggs Building at 325 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado. Visitors are welcome during normal working hours; advance notice is recommended. Visitors are welcome during normal working hours; advance notice is recommended. A visiting scientist program exists. All data are available via the Internet (URL address above), and anonymous FTP (ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov). Login for FTP access is userid: anonymous, and password: your full e-mail address.

Publications: The Paleoclimate Data Record (discontinued).

Special Projects: Past Global Changes (PAGES), an International Geosphere Biosphere Program Core Project, is distributing data via the WDC-USA. The Paleoclimate Model Intercomparison Project, sponsored by NATO, will compare numerical climate model simulations for different geological eras. Data from this project will be archived at and distributed via the WDC-USA. Other projects include a Database of Arctic climate variability for the past 2,000 years, and the archival of data from the 2007 IPCC Paleoclimatology Chapter.