Digitizing Weather Data to Support Research around the Globe
By Kim Nelson, Microsoft US Public Sector Executive Director of eGovernment
With more than 200 years of weather and climate data stored there, The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) provides a historical perspective that is vital to the study of global climate change and other important environmental issues. But sifting through 200 years of archived paper and microfilm records (over 12 terabytes of data!) is no small feat.
To support environmental researchers, NCDC embarked on a major initiative to modernize all of the data stored into a digital archived system, known as the Climate Database Modernization Program. More than 54 million documents were scanned, indexed and stored so that they could be made available on the internet.
While pleased with the archived system, NCDC also wanted a solution it could manage and host locally, if necessary. NCDC used Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 to develop a simple, reliable records management system that can handle vast amounts of data and offer users seamless adoption.
By using Office SharePoint Server 2007, NCDC can add collaboration, workflow, and other enterprise capabilities to the system. More importantly, with its new records management system, NCDC will continue supporting important weather and climate research throughout the world.
To read the full case study on this project, please click here.
