According to ESA, the European Space Agency, “satellite records show a constant downward trend in the area covered by Arctic sea ice during all seasons, but in particular in summer. The past six years have seen the lowest summer ice extent in three decades, reaching the lowest last September at about 3.61 million sq km” (European Space Agency, n.d.). In a time of a changing and/or warming climate, the science of paleoclimatology often is overshadowed by more technical measurements. However, using natural sources for climate research, paleoclimatology – tree rings, ice cores, corals, and ocean and lake sediments – “extend the archive of weather and climate back hundreds to millions of years”. From A Paleo Perspective on Global Warming, the NOAA Paleoclimatology site was created to introduce the topic of global warming, and to show how paleoclimate data provide a long baseline of past change.
The National Climatic Data Center of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website for paleoclimatology provides an extensive resource to researchers, especially via its Data Search page. “The National Climatic Data Center's Paleoclimatology Branch is the world's largest archive of climate and paleoclimate data. The Paleoclimatology Branch operates the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, an Applied Research Center for Paleoclimatology, and partners with national and international science initiatives around the world to expand the use of paleoclimatic data” (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/about.html). The About page describes these centres and the related programmes such as climatechange.gov. NOAA Paleoclimatology uses the guidelines for archiving and distribution according to the International Council for Science, supporting its goal to “strengthen international science for the benefit of society, and making all data freely available without restriction” (www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/wdc-paleo.html).
The site is divided into three main areas: Data, Projects, and Paleo Perspectives. Highlights for these sections are listed below each. Clicking on the main Data heading results in a list of proxy data types for each of the research areas featured on the centre of the page: a clickable map that highlights the sources for paleoclimatology – ice cores, fire history data, borehole data, plant macrofossils, tree-ring, paleoceanography, corals, lakes, fauna, cave, insect, and dust. Modeling and historical data sets pages are also included. Each offer data-rich pages that include sections for obtaining and contributing data, more information/other data archives, and related resources. NOAA provides for full and open access to data. Data and metadata can be downloaded in various formats depending on the file. Researchers can either search or browse data, using the Data Search page for a comprehensive search or select and browse one of the topic areas if this is the area of focus. FTP is the standard download option for many of the data sets.
According to Bruce Bauer, Data Manager for World Data Center for Paleoclimatology and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, Paleoclimatology Branch, the URL for the Paleoclimatology Data Search page can be abbreviated to http://hurricane.ncdc.noaa.gov/pls/paleox/f?p=514:4. It is a new basic search similar to a Google-type free-form text search. Entire records can be searched using and/or operators and % as a wildcard character. The Advanced Search option with fill-in fields is similar to the previous data search page www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ftp-search.html. Data can be searched by investigator and title and limited by latitude and longitude, altitude, and date. Each result includes contributors, data files for download, use constraints, data coverage, keywords, parameters, summary/abstract, and contact information. A map of the area is provided to diagram the latitude and longitude. Two archives can be searched here, NOAA-WDC and Pangea. Pangea (www.pangaea.de/) has provided a subset of their data holdings which have “palaeoclimatology” as a keyword – about 500 records which are listed in the NOAA database. These records link to the Pangaea site, an archive of primarily marine data, some of which overlaps in the paleoclimate realm (Bauer, 2013). An example of a data set retrieved in either search:
“Baker, R.G., Little Salt Creek (LITSALTA) North American Plant Macrofossil Database. SUMMARY/ABSTRACT: Records of past vegetation and environmental change derived from plant remains large enough to be seen without a microscope (macrofossils), such as leaves, needles, and cones”.
A map is provided (area of Lincoln NE) and datasets are available in TXT WK1 and ZIP files.
The Data Contribution page gives guidelines for contributing data. Each topic area also gives parameters for submissions. Data policy is provided. Data is to be freely available for the long term.
Three projects are highlighted under the Projects section, and are initiatives with which NOAA is involved: The NOAA Paleoclimatology Reconstructions Network, the 2K Network of the Past Global Changes (PAGES), and the PR-Challenge Pseudo-Proxy and Pseudo-Instrumental Data.
Paleo Perspectives are four climate-related areas in which NOAA Paleo staff offer their insights on critical issues. Abrupt Climate Change, North American Drought, Global Warming, and Colorado River Flow (via treeflow.info) synthesize the data at hand to centre on the importance of these topics. Each includes a distinct page that gives a perspective with an overview of the topic, data, references, and conclusion. Links to scientific research results and data sets are provided throughout the perspectives. The Education and Outreach section includes a Paleoclimate Discussion list, highlights from the site, and external links with additional information on paleoclimatology. The Site Map is an extremely useful guide to the site. It includes additional resources about paleoclimatology, help (how to find the data, data visualization tools), and numerous related outreach pages.
The National Climatic Data Center is to be commended for their vital and beneficial work and its adherence to the open access to data initiative of the International Council for Science, also the current administration.
