World Data Center Conference 2007 at the MARUM

At the close of the conference the roundabout 70 participants want to publish a strategy paper looking towards the future. In 1957 the forerunner organisation of the International Council for Science (ICSU) created the WDCs to archive and distribute data collected from the observational programs of the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year. Today, 50 years later, the WDC system includes 52 Centers in 12 countries. Its holdings include a wide range of solar, geophysical, environmental, and human dimensions data spanning timescales from seconds to millennia, providing baseline information for research in many ICSU disciplines, especially for monitoring changes in the geosphere and biosphere—gradual or sudden, foreseen or unexpected, natural or man-made. The WDC-MARE, host of the conference and one of the most active centers, is jointly operated by the MARUM and the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for polar- and marine research.

Scientists need data – large amounts of data. These they can access through the world data centers, e.g., the WDC-MARE. Especially global studies and models, which are needed to understand the complex system earth, gulp huge amounts of data and they spew them out as well. The models run by climate researchers in Hamburg for the ICCP-Report alone generated 200 terabytes data. That is the equivalent of 2.000 normal office hard disks with 100 gigabyte each. Access to all this data is the key word. Here the data centers come into play – they are committed to offer all interested persons access to their data. The main topics on the conference will be: Data quality and accessibility, network of the centers and the role of the WDC in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Apart from that there is always the 50th anniversary of the WDCs to be celebrated.