THE EVOLUTION OF WEATHER RECORDS ARCHIVAL AT NOAA's NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER

Long-term datasets are among the most essential tools for climate research. As these datasets grow, weather and climate archives face a significant challenge. The research community expects records to be retained in perpetuity, necessitating the vast accumulation of original records to support the longterm datasets. NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) is meeting this expectation. NCDC is communicating the importance of permanent retention to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and ensuring that permanent retention is a reasonable and practical requirement. Antiquated retention requirements based on the limitations of the pre-digital age will be discussed, as will the need to ensure that digital data remains readable and independently understandable.