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
GNSS/ERA TCWV 2023 Total Column Water Vapor: Integrated Water Vapor from GNSS stations

  • Years of record

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Total Column Water Vapor (TCWV) or Integrated Water Vapor (IWV) is a key measure of the quantity of moisture held in the atmosphere at given locations. Water vapor is a key…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Water Vapor

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
TerraClimate: Global, high-resolution gridded temperature, precipitation, and other water balance variables 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 Moisture

    • Timestep

    • Climatology, Monthly

    • Collections

    • N/A
Water Isotopes from Satellites Water Isotopes from Satellites

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Summary of 7 satellite-derived products providing a global snapshot of water isotope distribution in 3D, with good information on zonal gradients and seasonality…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Water Isotopes
map of Tmin over eastern US (credit: Michelle Thornton) 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
Cloud Dataset Overview Cloud Dataset Overview

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Cloud Properties
NASA MERRA NASA MERRA

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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
Equivalent Temperature warming vs. temperature warming Equivalent Temperature: HadISDH.land and ERA5

  • Years of record

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Equivalent temperature is a measure of heat in the atmosphere that accounts for the latent heat stored in water vapor in addition to sensible heat as measured by…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Specific Humidity
AIRS (Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder): Version 6 Level 2 AIRS (Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder): Version 6 Level 2

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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 Humidity

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • 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
NASA's MERRA2 reanalysis NASA's MERRA2 reanalysis

  • Years of record

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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
MSU/AMSU Atmospheric Temperature Climate Data Record, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) MSU/AMSU Atmospheric Temperature Climate Data Record, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS)

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A long (30-year+) data set of atmospheric temperatures for 4 tropopsheric and lower stratopsheric layers has been derived from brightness temperatures measured by the…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature
Atmospheric Reanalysis: Overview & Comparison Tables Atmospheric Reanalysis: Overview & Comparison Tables

  • Years of record

  • N/A

Reanalysis a systematic approach to produce data sets for climate monitoring and research. Reanalyses are created via an unchanging ("frozen") data assimilation scheme and…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere
California AR Feb 2017 Atmospheric Rivers: The Atmospheric River Tracking Method Intercomparison Project (ARTMIP)

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ARTMIP is the Atmospheric River Tracking Method Intercomparison Project. The goal of ARTMIP is to provide the community with the data necessary to quantify Atmospheric…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere

    • Timestep

    • Sub-daily

    • Collections

    • N/A

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Surface Flux and Meteorological Dataset: National Oceanography Centre (NOC) V2.0 Surface Flux and Meteorological Dataset: National Oceanography Centre (NOC) V2.0

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The National Oceanography Centre  (NOC) Version 2.0 Surface Flux and Meteorological Dataset is a monthly mean gridded dataset of marine surface measurements and…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Cloud Properties Evaporation Latent & sensible heat flux Multiple variables Radiation Sea Level Pressure Specific Humidity Surface Pressure Surface solar radiation Water Vapor Wind Ocean SST - sea surface temperature Surface Flux
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
GPPM logo decal, from NASA, https://gpm.nasa.gov/resources/images/gpm-decal IMERG precipitation algorithm and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission

  • Years of record

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IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for the Global Precipitation Measurement) is NASA's updated precipitation algorithm, while the Global Precipitation Measurement…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation