On May 23, 1972, the United States and the USSR established a bilateral initiative known as the Agreement on Protection of the Environment. The primary goal of the initiative, which remains active despite the breakup of the USSR, is to promote cooperation between the two countries on numerous environmental protection issues. Currently, the agreement fosters joint research in at least 11 "Working Groups" (i.e., areas of study). Given recent interest in possible greenhouse gas-induced climate change, Working Group VIII (Influence of Environmental Changes on Climate) has become particularly useful to the scientific communities of both nations. Among its many achievements, Working Group VIII has been instrumental in the exchange of climatological information between the principal climate data centers of each country [i.e., the National Clirnatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina, and the Research Institute of Hydrometeorological Information in Obninsk, Russia]. Considering the relative lack of climate records previously available for the USSR, data obtained via this bilateral exchange are particularly valuable to researchers outside the former Soviet Union. To expedite the dissemination of these data, NOAA's Climate and Global Change Program funded the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) and NCDC to distribute one of the more useful archives acquired through this exchange: a 223-station daily data set covering the period 1881-1989. This data set contains: (1) daily mean, minimum, and maximum temperature data; (2) daily precipitation data; (3) station inventory information (WMO No., name, coordinates, and elevation); (4) station history information (station relocation and rain gauge replacement dates); and (5) quality assurance information (i.e., flag codes that were assigned as a result of various data checks). The data set is available, free of charge, as a Numeric Data Package (NDP) from CDIAC. The NDP consists of 18 data files and a printed document; which describes both the data files and the 223-station network in detail.

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