This Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) keyword set contains names of locations. There are keywords for place names (continents, countries, islands), geographic regions, vertical regions, and regions of space.
For example: (1) EUROPE
, (2) AUSTRALIA
, (3) POLAR
, (4) SEA FLOOR
, (5) VAN ALLEN RADIATION BELTS
.
The keywords are arranged in a hierarchy of categories. Examples of categories are: CONTINENT
, SOLID EARTH
, and SOLAR REGION
.
These keywords have been used by organizations such as the United Nations Environmental Program, and the Center for Environment and Development for the Arab region and Europe.
Any person or organization may request an addition, modification or deletion to the keywords. A requester can be from the user community, a provider of metadata to GCMD, or any other GCMD stakeholder.
Further information is available in the Governance and community guide and at the GCMD Keywords Community Forum.
Generic information about the GCMD keywords follows:
The keywords help facilitate the classification and discovery of Earth Science data by providing a rich vocabulary for characterizing the data. The GCMD keywords are used by hundreds of data providers worldwide for categorizing the ~33,000 records stored in the Common Metadata Repository.
For more information about the keywords and how to access them, please visit the Keyword Landing Page. The GCMD User Support staff can be reached at gsfc-gcmduso@mail.nasa.gov. Questions can also be directed to Valerie Dixon at valerie.dixon@nasa.gov.