The Environmental Data and Information Service is the first Federal organization created specifically to manage environmental data and information. EDIS acquires, processes, archives, analyzes, and disseminates worldwide environmental (atmospheric, marine, solar, and solid Earth) data and information for use by commerce, industry, the scientific and engineering communities, and the general public, as well as by Federal, State, and local governments. It also provides experiment design and data management support to large-scale environmental experiments; assesses the impact of environmental fluctuations on food production, energy production and consumption, environmental quality, and other economic systems; and manages or provides functional guidance for NOAA's scientific and technical publication and library activities. In addition, EDIS operates related World Data Center-A subcenters and participates in other international data and information exchange programs. To carry out this mission, EDIS operates a network of specialized service centers and a computerized environmental data and information retrieval service.