NOAA Scientific Data Stewardship

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) initiated the Scientific Data Stewardship (SDS) Project to lead the Agency's CDR activities and to coordinate with the partner agencies. The SDS Project provides fundamental and geophysical CDRs per the recommendations of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report. The Project's goal is to extend proven algorithms to a sufficiently large set of observations that near-seamless long-term aggregate records are obtained. Application of same or similar algorithms across different satellites, when practical, allows development of homogeneous error structures - a key Project goal. The Project expects rigorous error analysis in all of its products.

The Project supports both near real-time processing and reprocessing (historical). The Project will conduct most initial CDR algorithm activities through competed Product Development Teams. The Teams will be responsible for developing an algorithm and production framework that achieves Project goals. To help ensure stakeholder trust and support, the Project expects each Product Development Team to conduct an early community workshop (year 1 of funding) in which it will explain the theoretical basis of its algorithm and its proposed CDR development approach. The Team is expected to consider all suggestions and requests for action. If the Team chooses not to incorporate a community-recommended modification, it must explain and defend its decision.