Authors
Trey Stafford (CIRES,NSIDC), Amy Steiker (CIRES,NSIDC), Colin Nickerson (CIRES,NSIDC), Leslie Goldman (CIRES,NSIDC)

Abstract

The NASA NSIDC Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC)'s Data Access Tool (DAT) is a web-based Javascript application that provides an interface for users to find, filter, and download data files associated with NSIDC DAAC datasets. Originally released in late 2018, The DAT currently serves 739 datasets, supporting 28% of total users and 17% of total data volume downloaded from the NSIDC DAAC. In April 2025, NSIDC DAAC updated the DAT to support datasets available from the NASA Earthdata Cloud and provide a new download option for users via NASA's Earthdata Download application. In the future, NSIDC DAAC plans to collaborate with teams across the NASA Earth Science Data Systems program to scale the DAT into an enterprise tool, with the goal of serving all NASA Earthdata datasets as an integrated application within the NASA Earthdata website. This integration will make it easier for data users to search, discover and download the data they want without leaving the data landing page, improving the overall accessibility of NASA Earthdata. This poster highlights the primary features of the DAT, reflects on usage over the years, and previews the DAT's future as an enterprise NASA tool. The poster also provides information about the open source software that defines and powers the DAT, opening the possibility for collaboration with the open source community.