The NASA Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) staff is pleased to announce the release of the GCMD keywords version 12.0. Version 12.0 of the keywords consists of new and revised Ocean keywords to more closely align with the NOAA Technology, Planning, and Integration for Observation (TPIO) keywords and based on a community review conducted through NASA's Earth Science Data and Information Systems (ESDIS) Standards Office (ESO). Based on the review, there were 61 new keywords and 8 revised keywords. The revised keyword paths included moving 'OCEAN SALINITY BUDGET' to be under 'OCEAN SALINITY'. Since there were no collection records with these keywords, there is no user impact. 5 additional new keywords were added based on requests from the keyword community.

Please find below a table of the keywords. All keywords are new except where noted as "Updated". Please post any questions about this release to the GCMD Keyword Forum. 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. Questions about the keywords can be submitted to support@earthdata.nasa.gov or directed to Valerie Dixon at valerie.dixon@nasa.gov.