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

Years of record
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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

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

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

Years of record
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"The new Climate Data Record (CDR) provides daily global climate data that are valuable as inputs into Radiation Budget Studies and verifying numerical models…
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Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The ECMWF's first atmospheric reanalysis of the 20th Century, ERA-20C, provides a long, gridded dataset of many climate variables, spanning 1900-2010. …
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Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Poli, Paul

Years of record
- to
"The Surface Solar Radiation Data Set - Heliosat (SARAH) is a satellite-based climatology of the solar surface irradiance (SIS), the surface direct normalized…
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Formats
- netCDF
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Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
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Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for the Global Precipitation Measurement) is NASA's updated precipitation algorithm, while the Global Precipitation…
Experts contributing reviews
- Huffman, George J.

Years of record
- to
The station-based index of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is based on the zonal pressure difference between the latitudes of 40S and 65S. As such, the SAM…
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Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- N/A
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Marshall, Gareth

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
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Hosking, Scott

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

Years of record
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The solar radiation arriving at Earth (once known as the “solar constant”, now usually referred to as Total Solar Irradiance (TSI)), is the most fundamental of…
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Formats
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Ball, William | Haigh, Joanna

Years of record
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The CCMP wind analysis is a near-global, high spatial and temporal resolution gridded dataset of surface wind vectors spanning 1987-present. The input data are…
Experts contributing reviews
- Ricciardulli, Lucrezia

Years of record
- to
This dataset consists of seasonally resolved timeseries of surface pressure at 18 Antarctic research stations, spanning 1905-2013. Routine meteorological…
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Formats
- ascii | Spreadsheet
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Timestep
- Seasonal
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Domain
- Antarctic
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

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

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…
Experts contributing reviews
- Karger, Dirk

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

Years of record
- to
The dynamics of the Southern Hemisphere westerly jet are described in terms of two indices, jet strength and jet latitude. Here, these indices are defined using…
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Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- Seasonal, Annual
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Bracegirdle, Thomas J.

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

Years of record
- to
ERA5, the successor to ERA-Interim, provides global, hourly estimates of atmospheric variables, at a horizontal resolution of 31 km and 137 vertical levels from…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere-
Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets
Experts contributing reviews
- Dee, Dick

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
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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

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 Land Runoff and Streamflow Soil Moisture evapotranspiration Snow Water EquivalentExperts contributing reviews
- Abatzoglou, John

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)…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Amaya, Dillon

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
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets
Experts contributing reviews
- Hausfather, Zeke

Years of record
- to
Climate Hazards Group InfraRed Precipitation with Station data (CHIRPS) is a quasi-global (50S - 50N), land-only rainfall dataset with a range of temporal and…
Experts contributing reviews
- Touma, Danielle | Martinez, Carlos

Years of record
- to
Summary of 7 satellite-derived products providing a global snapshot of water isotope distribution in 3D, with good information on zonal gradients and seasonality…
Experts contributing reviews
- Risi, Camille

Years of record
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NCAR Sea Level Pressure is a gridded analysis of SLP based on land station reports, covering 1899 to present for latitudes 30°N-90°N. Quality controlled raw data…
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- NH - Northern Hemisphere
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Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- Hurrell, James | Trenberth, Kevin

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

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…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere-
Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Dee, Dick | Fasullo, John | Shea, Dennis | Walsh, John

Years of record
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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
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- N/A
Data assimilation is the process of combining observations from a wide variety of sources and forecast output from a weather prediction model. The resulting…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere-
Formats
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- N/A
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
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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…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Water Vapor-
Timestep
- Sub-daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

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

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
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Dee, Dick

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…
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Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

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
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Timestep
- Climatology, Sub-daily, Monthly
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Domain
- North America
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The Arctic System Reanalysis is a multi-agency, university-led retrospective analysis (reanalysis) of the Greater Arctic. ASR is produced using high-resolution…
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
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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
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Timestep
- Sub-daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
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Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) makes use of routine observations by operational weather satellites to provide a long-term (1983-…
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Timestep
- Climatology, Sub-daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Pincus, Robert

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

Years of record
- N/A
Precipitation (rain, snow, hail, ...) is one of the key components of the hydrological cycle. Its societal importance cannot be over stated. For climate research…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- N/A
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Collections
- Overview / Comparison page
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- N/A
A climate index is a simple diagnostic quantity that is used to characterize an aspect of a geophysical system such as a circulation pattern. A variety of…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- N/A
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Domain
- N/A
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Collections
- Overview / Comparison page
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
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…
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- Australia, Pacific Ocean, Tropics
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Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- Trenberth, Kevin

Years of record
- to
The winter (December thru March) station-based index of the NAO is based on the difference of normalized sea level pressure (SLP) between Lisbon, Portugal and…
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Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- Monthly, Seasonal, Annual
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Domain
- Atlantic Ocean
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Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- Hurrell, James | Phillips, Adam

Years of record
- to
The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is a widely used index to characterize meteorological drought on a range of timescales. On short timescales, the SPI…
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Formats
- N/A
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Timestep
- Monthly
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Domain
- N/A
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Keyantash, John

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
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Pendergrass, Angeline | Wang, Jian-Jian

Years of record
- to
The NAM (or Arctic Oscillation) is defined as the first EOF of NH (20°-90°N) winter SLP data. It explains 23% of the extended winter mean (December-March)…
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Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- Seasonal
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Collections
- N/A
Experts contributing reviews
- Phillips, Adam

Years of record
- to
Directly measured and continuous records of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) extend back to 1958. CO2 has also been measured in ancient air samples trapped in…
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Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- Daily, Monthly, Annual
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Domain
- N/A
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Collections
- Boundary Conditions, Carbon cycle, Overview / Comparison page
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The North Pacific Index (NP index or NPI) is the area-weighted sea level pressure over the region 30°N-65°N, 160°E-140°W. The NP index is defined to measure…
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Formats
- ascii
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Timestep
- Monthly, Seasonal
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Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- Hurrell, James | Phillips, Adam

Years of record
- to
The GPCC provides gridded gauge-analysis products derived from quality controlled station data. Two products are for climate: (a) the Full Data Reanalysis…
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Timestep
- Climatology, Daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- N/A

Years of record
- to
The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is a joint space mission between NASA and Japan's National Space Development Agency designed to monitor and study…
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Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
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Domain
- Tropics
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Collections
- Obs4MIPS, Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- Huffman, George J. | Pendergrass, Angeline