Data management in the ERA of a rapidly changing cryosphere

Understanding the societal and ecological impacts of a rapidly warming Arctic, declining Arctic sea ice and the potentially strong positive climate feedback caused by thawing permafrost are key challenges in cryospheric science. Predicting how a changing climate may be driving these changes and how feedback processes in the cryosphere affect climate requires continuation of long-term satellite observations, intensive field and airborne campaigns, and new ways to analyze observational data and to integrate them with large-scale Earth system models. The National Snow and Ice Data Center, which is a primary archive for snow and ice data in the United States, is focused on making Earth observations more discoverable, accessible and providing new capabilities to visualize and synthesize diverse satellite, airborne and field data in ways that facilitate data use and accelerates scientific discovery.