Climate Data Online Web Services

Getting started with Web Services

NCDC's Climate Data Online provides a range of public web services that provide programmatic access to current data. CDO Web Services offers an API for developers looking to create their own scripts or programs which use the CDO database of observations.

CDO Web Services are accessed at the following base service URL:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-services/services

Use the links to the left to view the documentation for retrieving data from the CDO database of stations, locations, and observations.

Web Service Results

CDO Web Services' object collections are limited to a maximum of 100 elements per page. That is to say, the first 100 items in a collection, e.g., StationCollection, DataTypeCollection, or DataCollection, will be page 1; items 101+ will be page 2, etc. The set of collections for a web service query is enumerated by the page query parameter.

Access Control

Access is controlled by a unique 32-character token that must be provided for each service request. Individual tokens allow up to one web service query per second. The token must be appended to the end of the RESTful URI as a query parameter like:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-services/services?token={token}

Request a CDO Web Services token and then follow the instructions.

More Information

For more information, view the NCDC's CDO Web Services WADL at: