Level 1: General International

  • Global Earth Observation System of Systems(GEOSS)
    The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is an intergovernmental organization working to improve the availability, access to and use of Earth observations by building a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), which provides decision-support tools to a wide variety of users. As with the Internet, GEOSS will be a global and flexible network of content providers allowing decision makers to access an extraordinary range of information at their desk. The GEOSS Portal is the main entry point to Earth Observation data from all over the world. The GEOSS information services for cold regions, which may service as the GEOSS Community Portal functions, coordinates joint, global efforts to provide Earth observations and information services to decision-makers over a vast Cold Regions area, including the North Pole, South Pole, Himalaya-Third Pole and Mountain cold regions.
  • Global Change Master Directory (GCMD)

Level 2: General Polar

  • The Arctic Portal
    The Arctic Portal is a comprehensive gateway to Arctic information and data on the internet, increasing information sharing and co-operation among Arctic stakeholders and granting exposure to Arctic related information and data.
  • The WMO Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW)
    GCW is an international mechanism for supporting all key cryospheric in-situ and remote sensing observations. To meet the needs of WMO Members and partners in delivering services to users, the media, public, decision and policy makers, GCW provides authoritative, clear, and useable data, information, and analyses on the past, current and future state of the cryosphere.
  • Polar Data Catalogue
    The Polar Data Catalogue is a database of metadata and data that describes, indexes, and provides access to diverse data sets generated by Arctic and Antarctic researchers. Geographic focus is on Canada, but the PDC holds international collections, too, such as hundreds of metadata records of the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program. The records follow ISO 19115 and Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) standard formats to provide exchange with other data centres. Interoperability via OGC WMS, OGC WFS, OAI-PMH, and CSW (GeoNetwork) are in place for sharing metadata and data. The metadata records cover a wide range of disciplines from natural sciences and policy, to health and social sciences. Datasets are available for free public download, with new files being added on a regular basis as we work with researchers to prepare and submit their datasets. The PDC Geospatial Search tool is also available to the public and researchers alike and allows searching data using a mapping interface and other parameters.

Level 3: National Polar

  • Polar Knowledege Canada
    Polar Knowledge Canada (POLAR) is on the cutting edge of Arctic issues and strengthens Canada's position internationally as a leader in polar science and technology. POLAR also promotes the development and distribution of knowledge of other circumpolar regions, including Antarctica. It will provide a world-class hub for science and technology research in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut called the Canadian High Arctic Research Station. As part of Canada's Northern Strategy, POLAR improves economic opportunities, environmental stewardship and quality of life for Northerners and other Canadians.

Arctic Region

International

  • Arctic Data Centre
    Arctic Data Centre is a WMO Information System Data Collection and Production Centre building on the IPY legacy.
  • Arctic Data Explorer
    The Arctic Data Explorer (ADE) is a cross-domain data discovery tool for searching distributed repositories. Current search includes holdings of the ACADIS Gateway, NCAR's Earth Observing Lab, National Snow and Ice Data Center, Norwegian Meteorological Inst., and the US National Oceanographic Data Center. The ADE features an ISO-based metadata store, an available OpenSearch (ESIP-compliant) endpoint for automated searching, and metadata brokering technologies that allow for ingest of feeds in many formats.
  • Arctic Observing Viewer (AOV)
    AOV is a web mapping application for Arctic Observing data collection sites. This prototype is now available for visualization, synthesis, strategic assessment, and decision support for U.S. SEARCH/AON and other initiatives: The “who”, “what”, “where”, and “when” of data collection activities (sites with repeat measurements such as towers, boreholes, weather stations, etc). Optimize sampling design, assess progress, fill gaps, etc.
  • Arctic Research Mapping Application (ARMAP)
    ARMAP is a suite of online, interactive maps and web services that support Arctic science. The application displays details and field locations for over 2300 research projects funded by the US NSF and seventeen other agencies. A variety of web data services are also available for use by other organizations. Learn more about research projects, explore available data, plan and coordinate, etc.
  • International Arctic Systems for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA)
    The mission of IASOA is to advance coordinated research objectives from independent pan-Arctic atmospheric observatories through (1) strategically developing comprehensive observational capacity, (2) facilitating data access and usability through a single gateway, and (3) mobilizing contributions to synergistic science and socially-relevant services derived from IASOA assets and expertise.
  • The Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON)
    search facility for Arctic observational data harvests metadata from a series of data management institutions.

National

  • AbiskoGIS
    A research station based initiative from the Abisko Scientific Research Station, in sub-Artic Sweden, that contains a a mix of project data and metadata of monitoring activities.
  • Arctic Data archive System (ADS)
    The purpose of the Arctic Data archive System (ADS) is to archive and distribute multiple observational (atmosphere, ocean, terrestrial, and ecology) and satellite and model simulation datasets, and promote utilization of these datasets. ADS is the central repository of archived data on Arctic research in Japan
  • Natural Environment Research Council Arctic Office (UK)
    The aim of the Office and its website is to coordinate UK scientific research in the Arctic. The Office does provide information in its own right through a web map service(map.arctic.ac.uk.
  • The Norwegian Polar Data Centre and Norwegian Polar Institute Maps and Services are infrastructure nodes in development at the Norwegian Polar Institute, primarily focused on managing and distributing data from the institute itself. The data centre holds scientific, environmental and topographic data from the Norwegian Arctic, and distributes the data through open web services. The data centre also holds the repsonsibility as a National Antarctic Data Center (NADC) for Norway, and Antarctic metadata are harvested by the Antarctic Master Directory. The metadata services are being connected to other networks as well, including the Norwegian IPY data catalogue (DOKIPY).
  • Sea Ice Prediction Network (SIPN)
    Decline in the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice is an active area of scientific effort and one with significant implications for ecosystems and communities in the Arctic and globally. Forecasting for seasonal timescales (i.e., the summer and into fall) is of particular interest to many stakeholders since many activities that take place in the arctic are planned over the summer months, and many species are sensitive to the behavior of summer sea ice. However, seasonal forecasting is particularly challenging due to the variable nature of weather and ocean behavior over that timescale as well as current limits to data and modeling capabilities.
  • SIPN builds and expands on the Sea Ice Outlook project. The Sea Ice Prediction Network (SIPN)—launched in the fall of 2013—will develop a collaborative network of scientists and stakeholders to advance research on sea ice prediction and communicate sea ice knowledge and tools.
  • Svalbard Integrated Arctic Observing System (SIOS)
    Svalbard Integrated Earth Observing System (SIOS) is an international infrastructure project. There are 28 partners from Europe and Asia involved. The essential objective is to establish better coordinated services for the International Research community with respect to access, data and knowledge management, logistics and training.
  • ECDS - Environment Climate Data Sweden A data center that is part of the Swedish national infrastructure where research (meta)data can be stored and explored and possibly. This services has the potential to be a hub for exploring Swedish Arctic research data in a wider Arctic network.

Disciplinary

Atmospheric

  • The International Arctic System for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA)
    mission is to advance coordinated research objectives from independent pan-Arctic atmospheric observatories through (1) strategically developing comprehensive observational capacity, (2) facilitating data access and usability through a single gateway, and (3) mobilizing contributions to synergistic science and socially-relevant services derived from IASOA assets and expertise. The IASOA data access portal provides (through ISO-19115-2 metadata) discovery & access-level information for ~700 atmospheric datasets from the ten Arctic Observatories of IASOA. Also refer to Arctic Hub Group: IASOA.
  • The Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) organises atmospheric contaminants data for AMAP. The data are accessible through their EBAS database.
  • The WMO Information system (WIS) is the single coordinated global infrastructure responsible for the telecommunications and data management functions. It is the pillar of the WMO strategy for managing and moving weather, climate and water information in the 21st century.
  • GAWSIS is related to, but more specific, than the WMO listing above. It is an over-arching, coherent metadata system for the six world data centers that support the WMO's Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) program: WDCGG (Gases), WOUDC (Ozone/UV); WDCPC (Precip. Chem.); WWRDC (Radiation); WDCA (Aerosols/AOD); WDC-RSAT (Remote Sens.)

Biodiversity

Community Oriented

Cryospheric

  • National Snow and Ice Data center (NSIDC)
    The Roger G. Barry Archives and Resource Center (ARC) at NSIDC is an information resource for people studying Earth's frozen regions, the history of science, or past climate related to the Earth’s frozen regions. ARC is located at NSIDC's offices at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is open to the public. ARC offers a unique set of collections focused on both science and history in the Earth’s frozen regions, including the Arctic, the Antarctic, glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice, frozen ground, and more. The information and resources at ARC support NSIDC’s mission “to improve our understanding of the Earth’s frozen regions” and the Earth as a system.
  • The WMO Global Cryosphere Watch (GCW)
    is an international mechanism for supporting all key cryospheric in-situ and remote sensing observations. To meet the needs of WMO Members and partners in delivering services to users, the media, public, decision and policy makers, GCW provides authoritative, clear, and useable data, information, and analyses on the past, current and future state of the cryosphere.
  • World Glacier Monitoring Service Meta Data Browser The WGMS collects standardized observations on changes in mass, volume, area and length of glaciers with time (glacier fluctuations), as well as statistical information on the distribution of perennial surface ice in space (glacier inventories). Such glacier fluctuation and inventory data are high priority key variables in climate system monitoring;
    Interdiciplinary and national

Oceanographic

  • The ArcticROOS is a GOOS Regional Alliance for the Arctic
    The secretariat is located at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway. It has been established by a group of 14 member institutions from nine European countries working actively with ocean observation and modelling systems for the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas. The aim of the ArcticROOS is to promote, develop and maintain operational monitoring and forecasting of ocean circulation, water masses, ocean surface conditions, sea ice and biological/chemical ocean constituents in the Arctic Ocean. The ArcticROOS website http://arctic-roos.org/ contains some metadata and results of the long-term observations from partners. The main focus is on cryospheric and oceanographic data.
  • Ice Tethered Profiler (ITP)
    Building on the ongoing success of ice drifters that support multiple discrete subsurface sensors on tethers and the WHOI-developed Moored Profiler instrument capable of moving along a tether to sample at better than 1-m vertical resolution, we designed and field tested an automated, easily-deployed Ice-Tethered Profiler (ITP) for Arctic study. The system consists of a small surface capsule housing a controller interfaced to an Iridium data telemetry unit and inductive modem, a plastic-jacketed wire rope tether extending down 500 to 800 m into the ocean terminated by a ballast weight, and a new variation of the WHOI Moored Profiler (in shape and size much like an Argo float) that mounts on the tether and cycles vertically along it.
  • The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is an intergovernmental organization whose main objective is to increase the scientific knowledge of the marine environment and its living resources and to use this knowledge to provide unbiased, non-political advice to competent authorities. The ICES Marine Data Center organises marine data on, among other things, contaminants and biological effects of these, biological community, oceanography and fisheries. ICES is the data center for these data for AMAP.
  • International Bathymetric Chart of the Arctic Ocean (IBCAO)
    The goal of IBCAO is to develop a digital data base that contains all available bathymetric data north of 64° North, for use by mapmakers, researchers, institutions, and others whose work requires a detailed and accurate knowledge of the depth and the shape of the Arctic seabed.
  • Norwegian Satellite Earth Observation Database for Marine and Polar Research (NORMAP)
    The overall goal of NORMAP is to create and maintain a data repository, including metadata of the high latitude and Arctic regions based on Earth Observation data from polar orbiting satellites to facilitate and stimulate high quality and original multidisciplinary Earth System research, application and education in marine, polar and climate sciences
  • Oden Mapping Data
    Bathymetric data from multi-beam sounding on icebreaker Oden cruises. The data has been extensively downloaded and used and can be regarded as an example of a local initiative by individual research group leading to a success story in sharing of research data. The data is one of the sources to the IBCAO.

Social Science

  • Arctic Observation Network Social Indicator Project
    The Arctic Observation Network Social Indicator Project (AON-SIP) was supported byf the National Science Foundation from 2007 to 2011. This website is maintained to offer access to data compiled by the AON-SIP by researchers and policy makers.

Terrestrial

  • Frozen Ground Data Center
    The International Permafrost Association (IPA) has developed a strategy for data and information management to meet the requirements of cold regions science, engineering, and modeling communities. A central component of this strategy is the Global Geocryological Data (GGD) system, an internationally distributed system linking investigators and data centers around the world. The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in collaboration with the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) serves as a central node of the GGD.

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