Atmosphere
Atmospheric variables include temperature, precipitation, wind, pressure, clouds, greenhouse gases, and much more. Overview pages summarize and compare selected datasets of a given variable.
To find a specific dataset or variable, jump to the search box below or click your desired variable from among the blue sub-category buttons. Note that the classification of datasets by variable is approximate, especially for large, multi-variable datasets like reanalyses.
To see only the datasets accompanied by in-depth commentary, select the "Datasets with guidance" button when using the search box.
Sub-categories
Climate datasets
AIRS and AMSU: Tropospheric air temperature and specific humidity
Years of record
- to
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) project has generated decadal-length, global, gridded data sets of temperature and specific humidity for several standard…
Experts contributing reviews
- Tian, Baijun
Global surface temperatures: BEST: Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures
Years of record
- to
The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures (BEST) are a set of data products, originally a gridded reconstruction of land surface air temperature records spanning…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Ocean SST - sea surface temperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Cowtan, Kevin
Global surface temperature data: GISTEMP: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Surface Temperature Analysis
Years of record
- to
NASA Goddard's Global Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP) combines land surface air temperatures primarily from the GHCN-M version 4 with SSTs of the ERSSTv5…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Ocean SST - sea surface temperature-
Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Lenssen, Nathan
GHCN-D: Global Historical climatology Network daily temperatures
Years of record
- to
The Global Historical Climatology Network Daily database, GHCN-D, contains meteorological measurements from over 90,000 stations across the globe. The majority…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature PrecipitationExperts contributing reviews
- McKinnon, Karen
Global land-ocean surface temperature data: HadCRUT5
Years of record
- to
HadCRUT5 is one of the main datasets used to monitor global and regional surface temperature variability and trends. It is a global surface temperature product…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature at 2m Ocean SST - sea surface temperature-
Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets
Experts contributing reviews
- Hausfather, Zeke
MSU/AMSU Atmospheric Temperature Climate Data Record, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS)
Years of record
- to
A long (30-year+) data set of atmospheric temperatures for 4 tropopsheric and lower stratopsheric layers has been derived from brightness temperatures measured…
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Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- Mears, Carl
HadEX3: Gridded Temperature and Precipitation Climate Extremes Indices (CLIMDEX data)
Years of record
- to
HadEX3 provides gridded, station-based indices of temperature- and precipitation- related climate extremes and supersedes HadEX2. It is intended for global and…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature at 2m Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Land Freeze/ThawExperts contributing reviews
- Dunn, Robert
Global Temperature Data Sets: Overview & Comparison Table
Years of record
- to
Global surface temperature data sets are an essential resource for monitoring and understanding climate variability and climate change. The most commonly used…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Air Temperature at 2m Ocean SST - sea surface temperature-
Timestep
- Climatology, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Overview / Comparison page
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A
COREv2 Air-Sea Surface Fluxes
Years of record
- to
The Coordinated Ocean Research Experiments version 2 (COREv2) data set consists of a globally complete set of air-sea fluxes of momentum, heat and freshwater…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Evaporation Precipitation Radiation Wind Stress Land Runoff and Streamflow Ocean Surface Flux-
Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics, oceandiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- Yeager, Stephen
Global (land) precipitation and temperature: Willmott & Matsuura, University of Delaware
Years of record
- to
A series of gridded temperature and precipitation data sets. Station records that served as bases for the Terrestrial Air Temperature: 1900-2014 Gridded Monthly…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Air Temperature at 2m Precipitation-
Timestep
- Climatology, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- Matsuura, Kenji
PRISM High-Resolution Spatial Climate Data for the United States: Max/min temp, dewpoint, precipitation
Years of record
- to
PRISM is a set of monthly, yearly, and single-event gridded data products of mean temperature and precipitation, max/min temperatures, and dewpoints, primarily…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Dew Point Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation-
Formats
- ARC/INFO ASCII GRID | netCDF
-
Timestep
- Climatology, Daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Daly, Christopher
Surface Flux and Meteorological Dataset: National Oceanography Centre (NOC) V2.0
Years of record
- to
The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) Version 2.0 Surface Flux and Meteorological Dataset is a monthly mean gridded dataset of marine surface measurements and…
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Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- Kent, Elizabeth
AIRS (Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder): Version 6 Level 2
Years of record
- to
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…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Aerosols Air Temperature CO Geopotential Height Ozone: Tropospheric Precipitable water Specific HumidityExperts contributing reviews
- N/A
Global surface temperature data: MLOST: NOAA Merged Land-Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis
Years of record
- to
NOAA's Merged Land-Ocean Surface Temperature Analysis (MLOST) combines land surface air temperatures primarily from the Global Historical Climatology Network,…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Ocean SST - sea surface temperature-
Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A
ICOADS Surface Marine Weather Observations
Years of record
- N/A
ICOADS (International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set) is the most comprehensive archive of global marine surface climate observations available.…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Budget Cloud Properties Latent & sensible heat flux Sea Level Pressure Specific Humidity Wind Ocean SST - sea surface temperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Deser, Clara
U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI)
Years of record
- to
The U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI) was first presented in 1995 as a framework for quantifying observed changes in climate within the contiguous United States…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Wind Land Drought-
Formats
- ascii
-
Timestep
- Monthly, Seasonal, Annual
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Gleason, Karin
Daymet: Daily Surface Weather and Climatological Summaries
Years of record
- to
Daymet provides long-term, continuous, gridded estimates of daily weather and climatology variables by interpolating and extrapolating ground-based observations…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Radiation Water Vapor Cryosphere Snow Water Equivalent-
Timestep
- Climatology, Daily
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Thornton, Peter E
TerraClimate: Global, high-resolution gridded temperature, precipitation, and other water balance variables
Years of record
- to
TerraClimate is a global gridded dataset of meteorological and water balance variables for 1958-present, available on a monthly timestep. Its relatively fine…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Potential Evapotranspiration Precipitation Wind Snow Water Equivalent Land evapotranspiration Runoff and Streamflow Soil MoistureExperts contributing reviews
- Abatzoglou, John
E-OBS: High-resolution gridded mean/max/min temperature, precipitation and sea level pressure for Europe & Northern Africa
Years of record
- to
E-OBS is a high spatial resolution daily gridded data that covers the European region and is based on the station data collated by the ECA&D initiative (…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Sea Level PressureExperts contributing reviews
- van der Schrier, Gerard
APHRODITE: Asian Precipitation - Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of Water Resources
Years of record
- to
APHRODITE’s (Asian Precipitation - Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation) gridded precipitation is a set of long-term (1951 onward)…
Experts contributing reviews
- Maeda, Mio | Yasutomi, Natsuko | Yatagai, Akiyo
CHELSA high-resolution land surface temperature and precipitation
Years of record
- to
The Climatologies at high resolution for the Earth's land surface (CHELSA) dataset contains high spatial resolution monthly climatologies of mean, maximum and…
Experts contributing reviews
- Karger, Dirk
HadGHCNDEX - Gridded Daily Temperature Extremes
Years of record
- to
HadGHCND (aka HadGHCNDEX) is a gridded daily dataset of near-surface maximum (TX) and minimum (TN) temperature observations. Anomalies (departures from 1961-1990…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air TemperatureExperts contributing reviews
- N/A
HadEX2: Gridded Temperature and Precipitation Climate Extremes Indices (CLIMDEX data)
Years of record
- to
HadEX2 provides gridded, station-based indices of temperature- and precipitation- related climate extremes. It is intended for climate change detection and…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Land Freeze/ThawExperts contributing reviews
- N/A
Cloud Dataset Overview
Years of record
- to
Clouds cover about 70% of the earth's surface. They are important components of the cliimate's water and energy budgets. Historically, cloud reports have come…
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Formats
- N/A
-
Timestep
- Climatology, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Overview / Comparison page
Experts contributing reviews
- Stubenrauch, Claudia
GHCNDEX: Gridded Temperature and Precipitation Climate Extremes Indices (CLIMDEX data)
Years of record
- to
GHCNDEX provides gridded, station-based indices of temperature- and precipitation- related climate extremes. It is intended for climate change detection and…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Land Freeze/ThawExperts contributing reviews
- N/A
Livneh gridded precipitation and other meteorological variables for continental US, Mexico and southern Canada
Years of record
- to
The Livneh et al. (2015) hydrometeorological dataset consists of gridded daily and monthly precipitation, maximum and minimum air temperature, and wind speed for…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Wind-
Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Livneh, Ben
NOAA ThreadEx Long-term Station Extremes for America
Years of record
- to
ThreadEx is a data set of extreme daily temperature and precipitation values for 270 locations in the United States. For each day of the year at each station,…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation-
Formats
- ascii
-
Timestep
- Daily
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A
Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA)
Years of record
- to
The largest publicly available collection of quality-controlled, globally-distributed, historical radiosonde and pilot balloon observations is the Integrated…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Dew Point Temperature Geopotential Height Multiple variables Relative Humidity WindExperts contributing reviews
- Durre, Imke | Korzeniewski, Bryant
CRU TS Gridded precipitation and other meteorological variables since 1901
Years of record
- to
The CRU TS series of data sets (CRU TS = Climatic Research Unit Timeseries) contain monthly timeseries of precipitation, daily maximum and minimum temperatures,…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Cloud Properties Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Potential Evapotranspiration PrecipitationExperts contributing reviews
- N/A
Global surface temperature data: HadCRUT4 and CRUTEM4
Years of record
- to
Extending back to 1850 and frequently updated, HadCRUT4 is the longest data set of its type. HadCRUT4 is a combination of the global land surface temperature…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Ocean SST - sea surface temperature-
Timestep
- Climatology, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A
HadISD: Sub-daily, non-interpolated weather station data
Years of record
- to
HadISD ("Hadley Centre Integrated Surface Database") is a compendium of subdaily weather-station data developed by the UK Met Office that is based on NOAA NCEI's…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature at 2m Dew Point Temperature Precipitation Sea Level Pressure Storm data WindExperts contributing reviews
- Raymond, Colin
Extended Edited Synoptic Cloud Reports Archive (EECRA) from Ships and Land Stations Over the Globe
Years of record
- to
"The Extended Edited Synoptic Cloud Reports Archive makes use of routine synoptic observations made by humans on ships over the ocean and at weather stations…
Experts contributing reviews
- Norris, Joel
ERA-Interim
Years of record
- to
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…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Precipitation-
Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Dee, Dick
OAFlux: Objectively Analyzed air-sea Fluxes for the global oceans.
Years of record
- to
"The OAFlux project aims to provide consistent, multi-decade, global analysis of air-sea heat, freshwater (evaporation), and momentum fluxes for use in studies…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Latent & sensible heat flux Radiation Wind Ocean SST - sea surface temperature Surface Flux wind stress curlExperts contributing reviews
- N/A
JRA-55
Years of record
- to
Spanning 1958-present, JRA-55 is the longest third-generation reanalysis that uses the full observing system (in contrast, products like ERA-20C and NOAA 20CR…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable waterExperts contributing reviews
- Kobayashi, Shinya
An overview of paleoclimate information from high-resolution lake sediment records: Strengths, limitations and key databases
Years of record
- N/A
Accumulated sediments at the bottom of lakes are invaluable archives of past climate and environmental change. These sediments contain a variety of physical,…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Precipitation Biosphere Pollen Land-
Formats
- ascii | csv | Linked Paleo Data (LiPD)
-
Timestep
- Annual, Decadal, Irregular
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Larocca, Laura | Broadman, Ellie
CERES EBAF: Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy Systems (CERES) Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF)
Years of record
- to
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…
Experts contributing reviews
- Loeb, Norman
NLDAS: North American Land Data Assimilation System
Years of record
- to
The North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) integrates a large quantity of observation-based and model reanalysis data to produce long-term hourly…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature CAPE Evaporation Precipitation Radiation Specific Humidity Surface Pressure Wind-
Timestep
- Climatology, Sub-daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Xia, Youlong | Mocko, David
NASA's MERRA2 reanalysis
Years of record
- to
The Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2) is a global atmospheric reanalysis produced by the NASA Global Modeling…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Aerosols Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable waterExperts contributing reviews
- Bosilovich, Michael | Cullather, Richard
Tropical Moored Buoy System: TAO, TRITON, PIRATA, RAMA (TOGA)
Years of record
- to
The Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere program (TOGA) is a component of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) aimed specifically at the prediction of climate…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Precipitation Radiation Relative Humidity Sea Level Pressure Wind Ocean Absolute Dynamic Topography (ADT) Ocean Heat Content SST - sea surface temperature Salinity Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface Temperature u, v current componentsExperts contributing reviews
- N/A
GPCP (Daily): Global Precipitation Climatology Project
Years of record
- to
The 1DD product provides precipitation estimates on a 1-degree grid over the entire globe at 1-day (daily) for the period October 1996 - present. Both the Pentad…
Experts contributing reviews
- Pendergrass, Angeline
NOAA 20th-Century Reanalysis, Version 2 and 2c
Years of record
- to
The Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CR) provides a comprehensive global atmospheric circulation data set spanning 1850-2014. Its chief motivation is to provide…
-
Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A
CERA-20C: ECMWF's Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Reanalysis of the 20th Century
Years of record
- to
The CERA-20C is a global, coupled reanalysis spanning 1901-2010 with a focus on low-frequency climate variability. Similar to ERA-20C, the surface observations…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Multiple variables Cryosphere Sea Ice Concentration OceanExperts contributing reviews
- Laloyaux, Patrick
NASA MERRA
Years of record
- to
The Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) was undertaken by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office with two primary…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Water Vapor-
Timestep
- Sub-daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A
Amundsen Sea Low indices
Years of record
- to
The Amundsen Sea Low (ASL) is a climatological low pressure center located over the extreme southern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of West Antarctica. …
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Timestep
- Monthly, Seasonal, Annual
-
Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Hosking, Scott
NCEP NARR
Years of record
- to
A high resolution (32km x 29 pressure levels) data set focused upon the North American Region. Relative to the NCEP-DOE (R2) it has a much improved land-…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Land-
Formats
- GRIB
-
Timestep
- Climatology, Sub-daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A
NCEP-NCAR (R1): An Overview
Years of record
- to
NCEP-NCAR (R1) is the original reanalysis effort. It uses a frozen global state-of-the-art global data assimilation system (as of 11 January 1995). The original…
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Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A
Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR)
Years of record
- to
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…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Ocean-
Formats
- GRIB
-
Timestep
- Sub-daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A
GPCP (Monthly): Global Precipitation Climatology Project
Years of record
- to
Data from rain gauge stations, satellites, and sounding observations have been merged to estimate monthly rainfall on a 2.5-degree global grid from 1979 to the…
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Timestep
- Climatology, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Pendergrass, Angeline | Wang, Jian-Jian