National Centers for Environmental Information
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 2015 |
| Preceding agencies | |
| Jurisdiction | United States government |
| Headquarters | Asheville, North Carolina |
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent agency | National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service |
| Website | http://www.ncei.noaa.gov |
National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina, is the world's largest active archive of environmental data. In 2015 it was established from the merger of the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) and the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC). The current director is Thomas R. Karl, who was the director of NCDC before merger.
The establishment of NCEI was rooted in the dramatic increase in the demand for environmental data and information in the years preceding 2015. In order to meet the demand, the three existing data centers are merged in accordance with the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, Public Law 113-235:
NCEI was launched on April 22, 2015. The transition is expected to finish beyond 2020, while at the meantime none of the existing products and services will be affected by the merger. Existing URLs, links and domain names for the data centers will remain accessible, even though a plan will be developed to consolidate the domains, also any change will be advertised and appropriate redirects will be created.
NCEI hosts and provides access to over 20 petabytes of comprehensive atmospheric, coastal, oceanic, and geophysical digital data e.g. ocean depth information, sun surface data, million-year-old sediment records and near real-time satellite images.
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