The Unidata program and the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) have a long history of collaboration and cooperation to serve the needs of Unidata community members. The SSEC Satellite Data Services(SDS) group, which provides access to and distribution of real-time and archive weather satellite data, makes limited amounts of archive satellite data available to Unidata's academic community members at no cost via the “Multi-format Client-agnostic File Extraction Through Contextual HTTP” (MCFETCH) system.

The Committee on Data (CODATA) of the Paris-based International Science Council promotes open data policies, working to advance the interoperability and usability of research data. The Committee is committed to supporting FAIR data principles to improve the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets.

Within the CODATA organizational umbrella, Unidata software developer Steven Emmerson has joined the Digital Representation of Units of Measure (DRUM) Task Group, which aims to raise the profile of the digital representation of units of measure in research communities, representative and governing bodies, and with funders. DRUM takes the position that support for consistent digital representations of units of measurement is of far-reaching importance for science, technology, industry, and trade.

A container ship blocking the Suez Canal

For 6 days, 3 hours, and 38 minutes in late March, the Golden-class container ship Ever Given blocked the Suez canal, leaving more than 400 vessels piled up on either end of the canal as they waited for the stranded container ship to be refloated. While media coverage of the incident has focused on potential shortages of goods like petroleum, food, and bathroom tissue, little attention was paid to the potential for worldwide data shortages as a result of the reduction in shipping capacity.

Angelie Nieves-Jiménez

Angelie Nieves-Jiménez entered UCAR’s Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) program as a protégé in 2019, beginning an undergraduate research project studying sea breezes affecting her home island of Puerto Rico. As a rising senior at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez, she was set to continue her research as part of the SOARS program in 2020. While the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic up-ended her plan to return to Boulder for the summer, a combination of remote teaching, mentorship, and computing resources allowed her to make progress on her research.

Here at the Unidata Program Center, we know that geoscience data is important to you, and we want to do all we can to keep you informed as the efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus continue.

Although we are dedicated to maintaining community access to our data services, the National Science Foundation has not declared the Program Center to be critical infrastructure. Access to our physical location is currently highly restricted. As a result, Unidata will be providing

at least until social distancing recommendations are eased.