Overview of NSF Unidata

What is NSF Unidata?

NSF Unidata is a community data facility supporting a diverse community of education and research institutions with the common goal of sharing geoscience data and the tools to access and visualize that data. For more than 40 years, NSF Unidata has been providing data, software tools, and support to enhance Earth Systems Science education and research. Funded primarily by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), NSF Unidata is one of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)'s Community Programs (UCP).

Our Mission

The NSF Unidata program exists to serve a community of researchers and educators dedicated to advancing the frontiers of Earth Systems Science. While we share a set of long-term goals with our community, we are keenly aware that we play a significant but supporting role in their ongoing scientific and educational endeavors. As a practical matter, we look for things we can do now to help build the future our community seeks to achieve, realizing that the goals will evolve and our approach must be flexible. We also aim to sustain and enhance a community that capitalizes on new technology and approaches to advance our understanding of the Earth's Systems, providing community leadership and support. With these things in mind, NSF Unidata’s mission is

To transform the Earth System Science community, research, and education by providing innovative data services, tools, and expertise

History

The NSF Unidata program was first conceived in 1983, when the NSF called together representatives from some 80 U.S. university meteorology and atmospheric science departments to conceptualize ways of making "real-time" weather observations and other data available to the university community. As a result of that meeting, the NSF Unidata program was created to facilitate the transmission of weather data, imagery, and forecasts to the university community; to support universities' local interactive computing capabilities; and to improve data access capabilities for researchers and educators.

Future Plans

After more than 30 years of service to the community, the NSF Unidata program has never been more committed to helping educators and scientists obtain and use Earth Systems Science data. To that end, staff developers are investigating cloud technologies, data-proximate data processing, more efficient distribution mechanisms, and advanced visualization technologies.