Search and access 164 data sets covering the Atmosphere, Ocean, Land and more. Explore climate indices, reanalyses and satellite data and understand their application to climate model metrics. This is the only data portal that combines data discovery, metadata, figures and world-class expertise on the strengths, limitations and applications of climate data. Discover it now.
The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is a joint space mission between NASA and Japan's National Space Development Agency designed to monitor and study tropical and subtropical precipitation and the associated release of energy. The mission uses 5 instruments: Precipitation Radar (PR), TRMM Microwave... more
The CERES-EBAF product provides 1-degree regional, zonal and global monthly mean Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA) and surface (SFC) longwave (LW), shortwave (SW), and net (NET) fluxes under clear and all-sky conditions. EBAF is used for climate model evaluation, estimating the Earth's global mean energy budget, and to... more
NASA Team sea ice refers to a well-known algorithm used to estimate sea ice concentration from passive microwave brightness temperatures. This page discusses the algorithm itself and the long-term data set ("NSIDC 0051") produced by scientists at NASA Goddard and distributed by NSIDC. The NASA Team data are very... more
Using data from the Indian Ocean Hydrobase (IOHB) (Kobayashi et al., 2006), Hydrobase2 (Curry, 2002), and Southern Ocean Atlas (Orsi and Whitworth, 2010) databases along with the improved spatial and temporal coverage provided by ARGO profiling data, new estimates of ocean salinity and temperature change (0-2000m)... more
APHRODITE’s daily gridded precipitation is the only long-term (1951 onward) continental-scale daily product that contains a dense network of daily rain-gauge data for Asia including the Himalayas, South and Southeast Asia and mountainous areas in the Middle East. The number of valid stations was between 5000 and 12,... more
The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is a quasi-periodic oscillation of the equatorial zonal wind between easterlies and westerlies in the tropical stratosphere with a mean period of 28 to 29 months. The alternating wind regimes develop at the top of the lower stratosphere and propagate downwards at about 1 km (0.6 mi... more
The Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) was undertaken by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office with two primary objectives: to place observations from NASA’s Earth Observing System satellites into a climate context and to improve upon the hydrologic cycle represented in... more
CMORPH (CPC MORPHing technique) produces global precipitation analyses at very high spatial and temporal resolution. This technique uses precipitation estimates that have been derived from low orbiter satellite microwave observations exclusively, and whose features are transported via spatial propagation information... more
HadEX2 provides gridded, station-based indices of temperature- and precipitation- related climate extremes. It is intended for climate change detection and attribution studies and climate model evaluation. Twenty-nine indices, including daily maximum and minimum temperatures, number of frost days, maximum 1-day... more
GHCNDEX provides gridded, station-based indices of temperature- and precipitation- related climate extremes. It is intended for climate change detection and attribution studies, climate model evaluation, and operational monitoring of extreme climatic events. Twenty-six indices, including daily maximum and minimum... more
The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) is an extension of the widely used Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). The SPEI is designed to take into account both precipitation and potential evapotranspiration (PET) in determining drought. Thus, unlike the SPI, the SPEI captures the main... more
The CRU TS series of data sets (CRU TS = Climatic Research Unit Timeseries) contain monthly timeseries of precipitation, daily maximum and minimum temperatures, cloud cover, and other variables covering Earth's land areas for 1901-2012 (CRU TS3.21 is a recent release). The data set is gridded to 0.5x0.5 degree... more
The Climate Data Guide provides concise and reliable information on the strengths and limitations of the key observational data sets, tools and methods used to evaluate Earth system models and to understand the climate system. Citable expert commentaries are authored by experienced data users and developers, enabling scientists to multiply the impacts of their work and the diverse user community to access and understand the essential data.
The Climate Data Guide was named an exemplary community resource by the 2012 U.S. National Academies' report, A National Strategy for Advancing Climate Modeling, and is an element of the strategic plan for NCAR's Climate and Global Dynamics Division. NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, is located in Boulder, Colorado and is widely respected as a leading institution in the atmospheric and related sciences.
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News about climate data and its applications
Funding: NSF | National Science Foundation
Based at: NCAR | National Center for Atmospheric Research
A Project of: Climate Analysis Section in Climate and Global Dynamics Division
Created by: Climate Data Guide PIs and Staff
