AIRS (Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder): Version 6 Level 2
Years of Record: 2002/09 to 2013/03
AIRS Version 6 Level 2 data represent a significant improvement over AIRS Version 5 Level 2 products in terms of greater stability, yield, and quality. Several algorithmic improvements have been made by the AIRS Project in conjunction with the AIRS Science Team. Improvements include: (a)...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: HDF | HDF-EOS
Timestep: Sub-daily
Domain: Global
AIRS and AMSU: Trace Gases (CO2, CO, CH4, O3...); Level 3
AIRS provides satellite retrieval of mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide even under cloudy conditions, without the use of a priori information from models. AIRS retrievals use cloud-cleared thermal IR radiance spectra in the 15 micron band with an accuracy better than 2 ppm. AIRS retrievals have been...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | HDF-EOS
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Carbon cycle
AIRS and AMSU: Tropospheric air temperature and specific humidity
Years of Record: 2002/09 to 2011/05
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) project has generated decadal-length,
global, gridded data sets of temperature and specific humidity for several standard
levels in the troposphere for the obs4MIPS project. This obs4MIPS version of the
AIRS data are available at monthly resolution, 1ºx1º...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Experts contributing reviews: Tian, Baijun
Collections: Obs4MIPS
Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR)
Years of Record: 2000/01 to 2011/12
The Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR) is produced using a high-resolution version of the Polar Weather Forecast Model (PWRF) and the WRF-VAR and High Resolution Land Data Assimilation (HRLDAS) data assimilation systems that have been optimized for the Arctic. ASR-Interim is a 30km data set...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Monthly
Domain: Arctic
Argo Ocean Temperature and Salinity Profiles
Years of Record: 2000/01 to 2014/01
Argo is an array of over 3600 profiling floats distributed almost uniformly across the global oceans. First deployed in 2000, Argo floats provide temperature and salinity profiles from the surface to a depth of 2000m. The array has approximately 1 float for every 3 degrees of latitude and...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly,Weekly
Domain: Global
Experts contributing reviews: Willis, Josh
Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT)
Years of Record: 1995/01 to 2005/12
"The Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) is a multidisciplinary programme which undertakes biological, chemical and physical oceanographic research during an annual voyage between the UK and destinations in the South Atlantic." As of early November, 2013, there have been 23 cruises. AMT data have...
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Sub-daily
Domain: Atlantic Ocean
Collections: Carbon cycle
Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO)
Years of Record: 1870/01 to 2011/12
The Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) has been identified by some as a coherent mode of natural variability occurring in the North Atlantic Ocean with an estimated period of 60-80 years. It is based upon the average anomalies of sea surface temperatures (SST) in the North Atlantic basin,...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Atlantic Ocean, NH - Northern Hemisphere
AVISO: Satellite derived Sea Surface Height above Geoid
Years of Record: 1992/10 to 2010/12
The sea surface height relative to the geoid (the mean ocean surface of the Earth if the ocean is at rest) is derived from TOPEX/Poseidon, Envisat, Jason-1, and OSTM/Jason-2 altimetry measurements. Altimetry is a technique for measuring height. Satellite altimetry measures the time taken by a radar...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Obs4MIPS
Budgets: Mass, Moisture, Energy
The uneven distribution of incoming and outgoing radiation is the primary driver of the climate system. The resulting flows of energy by the climate components (atmosphere, ocean, ice, etc) determine the climate. Ultimately, the net difference between incoming and outgoing radiation determines if...
Main variables and Earth System components:
CALIPSO
CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations ) was launched on April 28, 2006 to study the impact of clouds and aerosols on the Earth's radiation budget and climate. It flies in formation with five other satellites in the international "A-Train" constellation for...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily
Domain: Global
Carbon Emissions from Historical Land-Use and Land-Use Change
Years of Record: 1800/01 to 2012/09
Annual net land-atmosphere carbon flux and net flux of carbon to the atmosphere due to land-use and land-use change (LULUC) are estimated using an integrated assessment model and three historical reconstructions of land use and land use conversion. The data span 1800-2010 and are aggregated for...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Annual
Domain: Global
Experts contributing reviews: Meiyappan, Prasanth
CARINA: Carbon in the North Altantic
Years of Record: 1978/01 to 2006/12
The CARINA (CARbon dioxide IN the Atlantic Ocean) data synthesis project is an international collaborative effort of the EU IP CARBOOCEAN, and US partners. It has produced a merged internally consistent data set of open ocean subsurface measurements for biogeochemical investigations, in particular...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Sub-daily
Domain: Arctic, Atlantic Ocean, Southern Ocean
Collections: Carbon cycle
CERES: IGBP Land Classification
The International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP) defines ecosystems surface classifications. The CERES (Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System)10-minute data can be used to derive the land categories. Other, finer resolution gridded surface data are available.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Climatology
Domain: Global
CHOMPS: CICS High-Resolution Optimally Interpolated Microwave Precipitation from Satellites
Years of Record: 1998/01 to 2007/12
CHOMPS utilizes all available passive microwave satellite estimates to develop improved global daily rainfall time series. No IR values are used. Satellite sources include SSM/I, AMSU, AMSR-E and TRMM. The most recent/accurate and consistent retrieval schemes have been used in the creation of the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Global
Climate Data Records: Overview
As defined by a US National Research Council committee, a Climate Data Record (CDR) is "a time series of measurements of sufficient length, consistency and continuity to determine climate variability and change." In the US, agencies such as NASA and NOAA have sponsored operational and grant...
Collections: Climate Data Record
Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR)
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2010/12
The CFSR is a third generation reanalysis product. It is a global, high resolution, coupled atmosphere-ocean-land surface-sea ice system designed to provide the best estimate of the state of these coupled domains over this period. The CFSR includes (1) coupling of atmosphere and ocean during the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: GRIB
Timestep: Sub-daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Cloud Dataset Overview
Clouds cover a significant portion of the earth's surface. They are important components of the cliimate's water and energy budgets. Historically, cloud reports have come from station or ship observations. This limited use of these observations for climate studies. However, since the satellite era...
Collections: Overview / Comparison page
Cloud observations from MODIS
Years of Record: 2000/02 to 2013/02
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is scanning instrument that makes measurements in 36 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared at spatial resolutions from 250 m to 1 km. There are MODIS instruments aboard two sun-synchronous polar-orbiting NASA satellites:...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | HDF-EOS
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Weekly
Domain: Global
Experts contributing reviews: Pincus, Robert
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics, Obs4MIPS
CloudSat
Years of Record: 2006/06 to 2010/11
CloudSat is a satellite mission designed to measure the vertical structure of clouds from space. The radar data produces detailed images of cloud structures.
CloudSat is one of a constellation of satellites known as the A-Train (Cloudsat, CALIPSO, PARASOL, Aqua, Aura, GCOM-W1). The satellites fly...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
CMORPH (CPC MORPHing technique): High resolution precipitation (60S-60N)
Years of Record: 2002/12 to 2013/10
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...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily
Domain: Global
CoRTAD: Coral Reef Temperature Anomaly Database (SST)
Years of Record: 1985/01 to 2005/12
"The Coral Reef Temperature Anomaly Database (CoRTAD) is a collection of sea surface temperature (SST) and related thermal stress metrics, developed specifically for coral reef ecosystem applications but relevant to other ecosystems as well. In addition to SST, it contains SST anomaly (SSTA,...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Weekly
Domain: Global
CPC Unified Gauge-Based Analysis of Global Daily Precipitation
A gauge-based analysis of daily precipitation has been constructed over the global land areas. Gauge reports from over 30,000 stations are collected from multiple sources including GTS, COOP, and other national and international agencies. Quality control is performed through comparisons with...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Global
CRU sc-PDSI (self-calibrating PDSI) over Europe & North America
Years of Record: 1901/01 to 2002/12
Maps of the monthly self-calibrating Palmer drought severity index (SCPDSI) have been calculated for the period 1901–2002 for the contiguous United States (20°–50°N and 130°–60°W) and Europe (35°–70°N, 10°W–60°E) with a spatial resolution of 0.5° × 0.5°
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Europe, North America
CRU TS3.21 Gridded precipitation and other meteorological variables since 1901
Years of Record: 1901/01 to 2012/12
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....
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly
Domain: Global
Daymet: Daily Surface Weather and Climatological Summaries
Years of Record: 1980/01 to 2011/12
Developed by Dr. Peter E Thornton to fulfill the need for daily climatological data necessary for plant growth model inputs, Daymet generates daily, gridded surfaces of temperature, precipitation, humidity, and radiation over large regions and takes into account areas of complex terrain.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Climatology,Daily
Domain: North America
ERA-15
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 1993/12
The ERA-15 production system generated re-analyses for 15 years (1979-1993) using a special version of their 1995 operational data assimilation system and model. The resulting analyses include full model resolution analyses or reduced resolution analyses and climate and statistics data...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: GRIB
Timestep: Sub-daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Experts contributing reviews: Shea, Dennis
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics
ERA-Interim
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2013/08
Using a much improved atmospheric model and assimilation system from those used in ERA-40, ERA-Interim represents a third generation reanalysis. Several of the inaccuracies exhibited by ERA-40 such as too-strong precipitation over oceans from the early 1990's onwards and a too-strong Brewer-Dobson...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | GRIB
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Experts contributing reviews: Dee, Dick
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics
ERA-Interim: derived components
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2012/12
Era-Interim data are used to derive monthly mass, moisture and energy budget products. Each term is available.
Atmospheric energy, mass, and moisture budgets can be computed by vertically integrating reanalysis fields and employing suitable corrections (e.g. mass). The budgets are uniquely...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
ERA40
Years of Record: 1957/01 to 2002/12
ERA 40 is a second generation reanalysis. It is the first reanalysis to directly assimilate satellite radiance data (TOVS, SSM/I, ERS and ATOVS). Cloud Motion Winds are also used. The result is better circulation over the tropics and southern hemisphere. However, unless comparing to previous...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | GRIB
Timestep: Sub-daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics
FLASHFlux: Fast Longwave And Shortwave Radiative Fluxes
FLASHFlux provides near real-time (7-8 days) quantification of surface radiative fluxes which are important for understanding the impact of changes to the Earth's surface and the atmospheric state on surface radiative fluxes.
An operational subsystem which uses a portion of the existing CERES...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: HDF
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Global
FLUXNET
"FLUXNET is a global network of micrometeorological flux measurement sites that measure the exchanges of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and energy between the biosphere and atmosphere. At present over 140 sites are operating on a long-term and continuous basis. Vegetation under study includes...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Sub-daily
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, landdiagnostics, Carbon cycle
FLUXNET: MTE (Multi-Tree Ensemble)
Years of Record: 1982/01 to 2007/12
Global, spatially and temporally explicit estimates of carbon and water fluxes derived from empirical up-scaling eddy covariance measurements would constitute a new and possibly powerful data stream to study the variability of the global terrestrial carbon and water cycle. Jung et al (2009)
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, landdiagnostics
Fossil & Surface Pollen Data
The NOAA Paleoclimatology Program distributes the product of various collaborative efforts to collect and organize pollen records from around the globe. These data include the pollen counts and related information, as well as several different derived data sets. Data archived here were last updated...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Domain: North America
Collections: Carbon cycle
Freshwater Discharge: 1948-2004
Years of Record: 1948/01 to 2004/12
"A dataset of historical monthly streamflow at the farthest downstream stations for the world’s 925 largest ocean-reaching rivers has been created for community use. Compared with previous studies, the new dataset has improved homogeneity and enables more reliable assessments of decadal and long-...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii | binary
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Global (land) surface temperatures: BEST: Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures
Years of Record: 1701/01 to 2013/03
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) data set is a comprehensive archive and gridded reconstruction of land surface air temperature records spanning 1701-present. It was intended to provide an alternative, independent assessment of global temperature change, separate from the analyses of...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly
Domain: Global
Global Ocean Heat and Thermospheric Sea Level Change
Years of Record: 1955/01 to 2010/12
Using updated data from the World Ocean Database (Boyer et al, 2009) and improved ARGO profiling data, new estimates of ocean heat content and thermospheric sea level change (0-2000m) for the period 1955-2010 are derived.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly,Seasonal,Annual
Domain: Global
Global Ocean Salinity Change, 1950-2008 (Durack-Wijffels)
Years of Record: 1950/01 to 2009/04
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...
Formats: netCDF | Image
Timestep: Climatology
Domain: Global
