The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced its new ‘portal to climate information’ at the web address Climate.Gov. The site is to serve as a consolidated home to climate information from across all of NOAA’s various departments. The site has potential but despite the announcement, some of the information on the site is already out of date.
The new site was announced yesterday by Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. Ironically, the Gore Effect seemed to be in full force as the major winter snowstorm that struck Washington D.C. forced the press conference to be held by telephone.
The NOAA Climate Service Portal will go hand in hand with the proposed NOAA Climate Service, a new branch of NOAA that officials want to become the one-stop-shop for climate information from the U.S. government. “We envision this climate portal as the first step toward making the wealth of climate information at NOAA available in one easy-to-use resource,” Lubchenco said.
- An interactive “climate dashboard” that lets users see a range of constantly updating climate datasets (e.g., temperature, carbon dioxide concentration, and sea level) over adjustable time scales;
- A new Web-based climate science magazine called ClimateWatch, featuring videos and articles of scientists discussing their recent climate research and topics that cannot be relayed in charts and graphs;
- Explanations and exploration of data products available from NOAA and partner agencies, with direct links to the sources of the comprehensive datasets;
- Educational resources for students and teachers, including lesson plans for the classroom and laboratory, educational games and interactive media; and
- Easy-to-understand fact sheets and presentations for professionals and the public about climate science, research and climate impacts.
