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
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The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) project has generated decadal-length, global, gridded data sets of temperature and specific humidity for several standard levels in…
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 1701-…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Ocean SST - sea surface temperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Cowtan, Kevin
GHCN-D: Global Historical climatology Network daily temperatures
Years of record
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The Global Historical Climatology Network Daily database, GHCN-D, contains meteorological measurements from over 90,000 stations across the globe. The majority of…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature PrecipitationExperts contributing reviews
- McKinnon, Karen
HadEX3: Gridded Temperature and Precipitation Climate Extremes Indices (CLIMDEX data)
Years of record
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HadEX3 provides gridded, station-based indices of temperature- and precipitation- related climate extremes and supersedes HadEX2. It is intended for global and continental…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature at 2m Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Land Freeze/ThawExperts contributing reviews
- Dunn, Robert
U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI)
Years of record
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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. At…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Wind Land Drought-
Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- Monthly, Seasonal, Annual
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Domain
- North America
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Gleason, Karin
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 for the…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Dew Point Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation-
Formats
- ARC/INFO ASCII GRID | netCDF
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Timestep
- Climatology, Daily, Monthly
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Domain
- North America
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Daly, Christopher
Daymet: Daily Surface Weather and Climatological Summaries
Years of record
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Daymet provides long-term, continuous, gridded estimates of daily weather and climatology variables by interpolating and extrapolating ground-based observations through…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Radiation Water Vapor Cryosphere Snow Water Equivalent-
Timestep
- Climatology, Daily
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Domain
- North America
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Thornton, Peter E
E-OBS: High-resolution gridded mean/max/min temperature, precipitation and sea level pressure for Europe & Northern Africa
Years of record
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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 (Klein Tank et al…
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
CHELSA high-resolution land surface temperature and precipitation
Years of record
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The Climatologies at high resolution for the Earth's land surface (CHELSA) dataset contains high spatial resolution monthly climatologies of mean, maximum and minimum…
Experts contributing reviews
- Karger, Dirk
TerraClimate: Global, high-resolution gridded temperature, precipitation, and other water balance variables
Years of record
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TerraClimate is a global gridded dataset of meteorological and water balance variables for 1958-present, available on a monthly timestep. Its relatively fine spatial…
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
Livneh gridded precipitation and other meteorological variables for continental US, Mexico and southern Canada
Years of record
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The Livneh et al. (2015) hydrometeorological dataset consists of gridded daily and monthly precipitation, maximum and minimum air temperature, and wind speed for the…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Wind-
Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Daily, Monthly
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Domain
- North America
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Livneh, Ben
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 climatology…
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
Note: HadEX2 has been superseded by HadEX3. HadEX2 provides gridded, station-based indices of temperature- and precipitation- related climate extremes. It is intended for…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Land Freeze/ThawExperts contributing reviews
- N/A
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 attribution…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Land Freeze/ThawExperts contributing reviews
- N/A
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 Time series) contain gridded monthly fields of precipitation, daily maximum and minimum temperatures, cloud…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Cloud Properties Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Potential Evapotranspiration PrecipitationExperts 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 from station…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- Climatology, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Overview / Comparison page
Experts contributing reviews
- Stubenrauch, Claudia
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, ThreadEx…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation-
Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- Daily
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Domain
- North America
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A
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 of global…
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
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, geochemical,…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Precipitation Biosphere Pollen Land-
Formats
- ascii | csv | Linked Paleo Data (LiPD)
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Timestep
- Annual, Decadal, Irregular
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Larocca, Laura | Broadman, Ellie
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 and…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Aerosols Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable waterExperts contributing reviews
- Bosilovich, Michael | Cullather, Richard