| Acronym | Meaning |
| CAC | Climate Analysis Center |
| ESSA | Environmental Science Services Administration (preceded NOAA) |
| GOES | Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite |
| NCDC | National Climatic Data Center |
| GMS | Geostationary Meteorological Satellite |
| NCAR | National Center For Atmospheric Research |
| AMRIR | Advanced Medium Resolution Infrared Radiometer |
| HIRES | HIgh RESolution |
| CD-ROM | Compact Disc-Read Only Memory |
| ABS | Advanced Baseline Sounder |