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.

Climate datasets

Has expert guidance
NASA MERRA NASA MERRA

  • Years of Record

  • 1979-01 to 2016-02

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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Water Vapor

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Amundsen Sea Low indices Amundsen Sea Low indices

  • Years of Record

  • 1959-01 to 2022-12

The Amundsen Sea Low (ASL) is a climatological low pressure center located over the extreme southern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of West Antarctica.  Atmospheric…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Sea Level Pressure
NCEP NARR NCEP NARR

  • Years of Record

  • 1979-01 to 2022-02

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-hydrology, diurnal…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Land

    • Timestep

    • Climatology, Sub-daily, Monthly

    • Collections

    • N/A

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
NCEP-NCAR (R1): An Overview NCEP-NCAR (R1): An Overview

  • Years of Record

  • 1948-01 to 2022-02

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 database…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR)

  • Years of Record

  • 1979-01 to 2017-11

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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Ocean

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
GPCP (Monthly): Global Precipitation Climatology Project GPCP (Monthly): Global Precipitation Climatology Project

  • Years of Record

  • 1979-01 to 2020-07

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 present. The…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation