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
PRISM High-Resolution Spatial Climate Data for the United States: Max/min temp, dewpoint, precipitation PRISM High-Resolution Spatial Climate Data for the United States: Max/min temp, dewpoint, precipitation

  • Years of record

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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
QuikSCAT: near sea-surface wind speed and direction QuikSCAT: near sea-surface wind speed and direction

  • Years of record

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The QuikSCAT mission was intended to obtain sea-surface wind speed and direction data under all weather and cloud conditions over Earth's oceans. SeaWinds, an active radar…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Wind
UK Met Office; contributed by Colin Raymond HadISD: Sub-daily, non-interpolated weather station data

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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 Integrated…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature at 2m Dew Point Temperature Precipitation Sea Level Pressure Storm data Wind

    • Timestep

    • Sub-daily

    • Collections

    • N/A
JRA-55 JRA-55

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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 assimilate a…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water

    • Timestep

    • Sub-daily, Monthly

    • Collections

    • N/A
Post-boost climatology of lightning from TRMM LIS (September 2001 through December 2014). Taken from Blakeslee et al. (2020). (credit: Dennis Buechler) Lightning data from the TRMM and ISS Lightning Image Sounder (LIS): Towards a global lightning Climate Data Record

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The Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) is an optically based spaceborne lightning detection instrument that has been hosted on two different platforms – the Tropical Rainfall…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Lightning
IBTrACS: Tropical cyclone best track data IBTrACS: Tropical cyclone best track data

  • Years of record

  • N/A

IBTrACS (International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship) provides global tropical cyclone best track data in a centralized location to aid our understanding of the…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Storm data
NASA's MERRA2 reanalysis NASA's MERRA2 reanalysis

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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 water

    • Timestep

    • Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly

    • Collections

    • N/A
AIRS and AMSU: Tropospheric air temperature and specific humidity AIRS and AMSU: Tropospheric air temperature and specific humidity

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Specific Humidity
U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI) U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI)

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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
Meridional Modes and their indices Meridional Modes and their indices

  • Years of record

  • N/A

In each of the world’s tropical ocean basins, year-to-year climate variability is primarily governed by fluctuations in the zonal sea surface temperature (SST) gradient and…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Wind Ocean SST - sea surface temperature
timeseries of signal and noise in the SOI Southern Oscillation Indices: Signal, Noise and Tahiti/Darwin SLP (SOI)

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The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) is a time series used to characterize the large scale sea level pressure (SLP) patterns in the tropical Pacific. Monthly mean SLP at…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Sea Level Pressure