Linking from observations to data to actionable science in the climate data initiative

Abstract

A tremendous amount of Earth and Climate related data and information are available from the U.S. Federal government. Among the proposed actions of the President's Climate Action Plan are several efforts to foster the use of existing data to encourage development of additional data products and tools that can be used to improve community resilience and prepare for the impacts of climate change. Building on previous efforts to organize the presentation of this material from Federal web pages and data centers, the Climate Data Initiative is working together with other related efforts to link Earth observation systems through to data resulting from them and on to related web pages, case studies, decision making tools, and other relevant content. Often such information is not located in a single web site, data center, or even a single agency, but distributed across the Federal Government. Linking such information across the breadth of interagency holdings can increase understanding of the complexity of those holdings and their inter-relationships and allow a more cohesive presentation of all of the material.