From the beginning, the Environmental Data Service (EDS), forerunner to the National Environmental, Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), was conceived as the department responsible for storing, retrieving, and publishing data gathered by NOAA and for developing systems to process and present NOAA data in the most useful historical and statistical form. Today, although the technological means of performing those duties has advanced, NESDIS' mission closely hews to those original goals, aiming to provide secure and timely access to global environmental data and information from satellites and other sources to promote and protect the Nation's security, environment, economy, and quality of life.
About this guide: Publications from both contemporary and historical offices are included in this guide. Where possible, links are provided to the series through NOAA's Institutional Repository. However, in some cases and particularly for ESSA series, materials are only available in the library's catalog. Additionally, while many publications have already been digitized in PDF format, others must be obtained in print.
This line office underwent numerous changes before taking on the form and organization we know today. In 1965, the Environmental Data Service (EDS) was established with the advent of ESSA. In 1978, EDS was renamed the Environmental Data and Information Service (EDIS), a title that endured only until 1982, when the organization merged with the National Earth Sattelite Service (NESS) to become NESDIS. NESS replaced the earlier ESSA entity called the National Environmental Sattelite Center. NESDIS has many eponymous publications, which may include content produced by its subsidiary centers, particularly in the case of NOAA Atlas, and its many subseries. Also included here are links to EDS climate bibliographies.
Current Publications
Historical Publications
The Joint Polar Satellite System is a collaboration between NOAA and its acquisition agent, NASA. JPSS was established in 2010 as the civilian successor to the restructured National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). Satellites in the JPSS constellation gather global measurements of atmospheric, terrestrial and oceanic conditions, including sea and land surface temperatures, vegetation, clouds, rainfall, snow and ice cover, fire locations and smoke plumes, atmospheric temperature, water vapor and ozone.
Current Publications
Historical Organization
The National Climatic Data Center was formed at the birth of NOAA in 1970. NCDC's predecessor was the National Weather Records Center, established in 1951 to house the weather records of the Weather Bureau, Air Force, and Navy. Today, NCEI carries on NCDC's mission to pioneer the future of weather and climate data and information services by providing accurate records from ground-based and satellite data, maintaining long-term records, using cutting edge data management techniques, and serving the public with trends in and the status of weather and climate.
Historical Publications
Historical Organization
Before the creation of NCEI, the National Geophysical Data Center was one of three NOAA National Data Centers. NGDC's mission was to provide scientific stewardship, products and services for geophysical data describing the solid earth, marine, and solar-terrestrial environment, as well as earth observations from space. NGDC was formed in 1965 from existing data management programs of the Coast and Geodetic Survey and the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory. In 1972, NGDC was combined with the Aeronomy and Space Data Center (ASDC) to form the National Geophysical and Solar and Terrestrial Data Center (NGSDC), befor reverting back to the name NGDC ten years later in 1982.
Historical Publications
Historical Organization
Established in 1961, the NODC was originally an interagency facility administered by the U.S. Naval Hydrographic (later Oceanographic) Office. The NODC was transferred to NOAA in 1970. In the words of its charter, the NODC serves to "acquire, process, preserve, and disseminate oceanographic data," while also including the National Coastal Data Development Center (NCDDC). Its primary mission was to ensure that global oceanographic data collected at great cost was maintained in a permanent, easily accessible archive.
Historical Publications
Historical Organization
The mission of the Assessment and Information Services Center was to provide value-added environmental information to support national needs and goals, especially focusing on transmitting decision assistance to the nation's research managers. AISC's programs were in the arena of environmental assessments and environmental information management and complemented the work of the three data centers (NCDC, NGDC, and NODC). Based upon available documentation, it is understood that AISC was preceded by the Environmental Science Information Center (ESIC), which also administered the library system, managed NOAA scientific publications, and developed scientific information systems. Before ESIC, the libraries also published a series under ESSA's Office of Administration and Technical Services (ATS).
Historical Publications
Historical Organization
The Center for Experiment Design and Data Analysis became part of NOAA's Environmental Data Service (EDS) in 1972 and was given the responsibility for data management and research activities related to major international scientific field experiments. CEDDA was formerly known as the Barbados Oceanographic and Meteorological Analysis Project (BOMAP) formulated to analyze data collected during the 1969 Barbados Oceanographic and Meteorological Experiment (BOMEX). In addition to BOMEX, CEDDA series also disseminated data on the 1972-73 International Field Year for the Great Lakes (IFYGL), the 1974 Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP) Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE), as well as other projects
Historical Publications
Historical Organization
NOAA's former Systems Analysis Center published technical memoranda on the subject of enterprise software used at the agency in the past.
Historical Publications
