The Global Telecommunications System (GTS) is a major component of transmitting global meteorological data, consisting of both in situ and satellite observations. This data is collected by a number of organizations, which archive and further process the data. The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) collect this GTS data and formats it into BUFR (Binary Universal Form for the Representation of meteorological data) for their processing needs. After processing, the BUFR is transmitted to NCAR for archival and additional processing into the International Maritime Meteorological Archive (IMMA) format for the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS). NCAR also archives this IMMA-formatted data. NCDC will use these data as source input for the new ICOADS Near-Real-Time (NRT) product and will archive the two data streams from NCAR--the NCEP-BUFR data as well as IMMA (International Maritime Meteorological Archive) formatted data files (converted from the NCEP-BUFR file format) that are produced by NCAR. The IMMA format has been adopted by many organizations as the preferred format for marine observations. The data consists of basic observations taken from ships, buoys, C-MAN (Coastal Marine Automated Network), and tide-gauge stations. Observations may include: air and sea surface temperature, wind direction/speed, waves, sea level pressure, etc.

The Reference Climatological Stations (RCS) network represents the first effort by NOAA to create and maintain a nationwide network of stations located only in areas where no changes in the surroundings are foreseen. Efforts to establish the network began in 1954 by the National Weather Service. The network became operational in 1966 with the selection of fifteen stations from a list of 28 candidate sites; six more were added as the network expanded. Most stations were located at university agricultural experiment stations. Core data elements include temperature, rainfall, and wind speed & direction. Some stations also measured evaporation and soil temperature. Observations were taken daily by volunteer observers, and were a subset of the extensive NWS Cooperative Observations network. Stations were assigned Cooperative Station IDs, but were provided with special forms on which to record wind speed and direction, elements not recorded at other Coop stations.

The Global Marine Observations in 10-degree bins are reformatted data from the International Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS). ICOADS consists of digital data archived at the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI). ICOADS is the world's largest collection of marine surface in situ observations with 500+ million unique records from 1662-present. The coverage is global and sampling density varies depending on date and position relative to major ocean shipping routes. ICOADS data are made available through observations that are taken primarily from ships (merchant, ocean research, fishing, navy, etc.) and moored and drifting buoys. Each report contains individual observations of meteorological and oceanographic variables, such as sea surface and air temperatures, winds, pressure, humidity, wet bulb, dew point, ocean waves, and cloudiness. Also available are monthly statistics of observations. After the observations are summarized the data are not interpolated or analyzed to fill data voids. A monthly summary for an area box includes statistics (e.g. mean, median, standard deviation, etc.) for observed and computed variables (e.g. sea surface and air temperature, wind, pressure, humidity, cloudiness, etc.). The original ICOADS data are available in ASCII, native binary, and NetCDF4 formats. The Global Marine data are available in the 10-degree bins in CSV and PDF formats. The PDFs are available for Certification.

The Active Marine Station Metadata is a daily metadata report for active marine bouy and C-MAN (Coastal Marine Automated Network) platforms from the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC). Metadata includes the station id, latitude/longitude (resolution to thousandths of a degree), the station name, the station owner, the program the station is associated with (e.g., TAO, NDBC, tsunami, NOS, etc.), station type (e.g., buoy, fixed, oil rig, etc.), notification if the station observes meteorology, currents, and water quality (signified by 'y' for yes and 'n' for no). If there is a 'y' associated with one of these tags, then the station has reported data in that category within the last 8 hours (or 24 hours for DART stations--Deep-Ocean Assessment Reporting of Tsunamis). If there is an 'n', data has not been received within those times. Stations are removed from the list when they are dismantled. The metadata information is written to a daily XML-formatted file.

Timeseries data from 'San Clemente Island NALF, CA' (gov_noaa_nws_knuc)

Timeseries data from 'San Nicolas Island, CA' (gov_noaa_nws_knsi)

Timeseries data from 'Noorvik/Curtis Mem, AK (PFNO)' (gov_noaa_awc_pfno)