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Unidata

Unidata is a program within the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) that develops and supports data access, sharing, and analysis tools for the geosciences. It serves researchers, educators, and students in meteorology, atmospheric science, oceanography, and related fields, promoting open data standards and interoperability across systems and institutions.

Founded in the late 1980s with support from the National Science Foundation, Unidata coordinates a community

Key products and projects associated with Unidata include the netCDF data model and libraries for scalable

Operationally, Unidata offers training, workshops, and technical support, and it fosters community-driven development through collaborations with

of
universities
and
research
organizations
to
acquire,
manage,
and
disseminate
real-time
and
archived
weather
and
climate
data.
Its
work
emphasizes
enabling
broad
access
to
data
and
encouraging
collaboration
through
shared
software
and
formats.
data
access,
the
THREDDS
Data
Server
for
cataloging
and
serving
datasets,
the
Local
Data
Manager
(LDM)
for
real-time
data
distribution,
and
the
Integrated
Data
Viewer
(IDV)
for
data
visualization.
The
UDUNITS
library
provides
robust
unit
handling,
while
the
CF
conventions
underpin
metadata
practices
used
across
many
atmospheric
and
oceanic
data
sets.
Unidata
also
supports
ongoing
development
of
data
tools
and
standards
that
facilitate
interoperability.
universities
and
research
groups.
The
program
is
headquartered
at
the
Unidata
Program
Center
in
Boulder,
Colorado,
and
operates
as
part
of
UCAR,
receiving
funding
from
the
NSF
and
participating
institutions.
Its
impact
is
broad,
enabling
widespread
access
to
meteorological
and
environmental
data
for
education
and
scientific
research,
and
contributing
to
open
data
practices
in
the
geosciences.