The Data-Sharing Platform of Polar Science (hereafter called “the Platform”) is managed and operated by the Chinese National Arctic and Antarctic Data Center (hereafter called CN-NADC).It is an information system that provides data-sharing services to domestic and overseas polar science scientific researchers.

In order to promote polar science research, save the valuable data obtained in past years of polar research and improve the efficiency of data use, the “Chinese Polar Science Database System” project（G99-A-02a）was registered in 1999 as the exclusive project of the Ministry of Science and Technology. In2002 the project was completed and was operational on the web, offering polar data-sharing services for researchers. In year 2004 the “Chinese National Polar Science Database System” joined the “Data-Sharing Network of Earth System Science” and became part of the national scientific data-sharing platforms.

Over the years of support from departments in charge of polar research on data management and sharing policies, with the active participation of the polar research institutes of China, and with its own efforts of continuing expansion and construction, the Platform has become one of the most inclusive and most open data-sharing platform in China. Currently, the platform boasts 778 observation datasets in areas such as oceanography, atmospheric science, biology, geophysics, glaciology and various subject databases like polar maps, oceanography, meteorology and microorganism. It also contains 6.8GB of on-line data, 2,000 GB of off-line data, and allows for enquiry, use and access of scientific data/information for scientific researchers in China. Meanwhile, it also provides an English version of polar research data for the overseas data users.

During “11th Five-Year-Plan Period”, with the full implementation of the IPY 2007-2008 Chinese Programme, the Platform will further enrich its data resources, improve data quality control, enhance data exchange with other polar research institutes, integrate the polar data, construct a series of polar subject databases with its focus on various polar research areas and key disciplines, develop database products, expand the coverage of polar data usage and increase its usage efficiency. The Platform will thus make its own contributions to promoting polar scientific research.