This award supports the Antarctic Master Directory (AMD), a database of metadata records on Antarctic research. The AMD was originally supported by the US Antarctic Program in 1996 in response to a recommendation of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties that a master directory of Antarctic research be created. The AMD is run by the "National Snow and Ice Data Center" (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the submitting institution for this proposal.
The database itself is a subset of NASA's more general Global Climate Change Master Directory (GCMD). The AMD serves as a separate portal into the GCMD for both data entry and search, which the support provided under this proposal facilitates. All researchers getting NSF-support for Antarctic work are required to submit a metadata record to the AMD upon project completion.
Other countries also use the AMD and GCMD to store metadata on their natinal Antarctic research programs.
