Land

Important land variables include soil moisture, vegetation coverage, surface radiation budgets and 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.

To see only the datasets accompanied by expert commentaries, select the "Datasets with guidance" button when using the search box.

Climate datasets

Has expert guidance
GHCNDEX: Gridded Temperature and Precipitation Climate Extremes Indices (CLIMDEX data) 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/Thaw

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
HadEX2: Gridded Temperature and Precipitation Climate Extremes Indices (CLIMDEX data) 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Note: HadEX2 has been superseded by HadEX3.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/Thaw

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Drought atlases from tree rings Drought atlases from tree rings

  • Years of record

  • to

Tree-ring drought atlases provide a paleoclimate analog to modern drought indices, most commonly the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI).  Produced on a regular lat-…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Drought
NDVI: Normalized-difference-vegetation-index: NOAA AVHRR NDVI: Normalized-difference-vegetation-index: NOAA AVHRR

  • Years of record

  • to

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values are derived from surface reflectance data acquired by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor. By…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land NDVI" Normalized Difference Vegetation Index

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
NDVI and EVI: Vegetation Indices (MODIS) NDVI and EVI: Vegetation Indices (MODIS)

  • Years of record

  • to

MODIS vegetation indices, produced on 16-day and monthly intervals and at multiple spatial resolutions, provide consistent spatial and temporal comparisons of vegetation…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) NDVI" Normalized Difference Vegetation Index

    • Timestep

    • Daily, Monthly, Weekly

    • Collections

    • N/A

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis

  • Years of record

  • to

ERA5, the successor to ERA-Interim, provides global, hourly estimates of atmospheric, ocean-wave and land-surface variables, at a horizontal resolution of 31 km and 137…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Land Ocean wave height
Soil Moisture Data Sets: Overview & Comparison Tables Soil Moisture Data Sets: Overview & Comparison Tables

  • Years of record

  • N/A

Soil moisture is a state variable of the land that crosses the interfaces of several disciplines, including meteorology, hydrology, climatology and ecology. Soil moisture…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Soil Moisture
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

  • to

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
A team on a boat coring lakes in the Arctic (credit: Laura Larocca) 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
graph Simulation performance of 19 Earth system models (credit: Justin Makin and Corey Lesk) Making sense of data from Land Surface Models (LSMs)

  • Years of record

  • N/A

The land surface is a dynamic and complex component of the Earth system, shaping climate and biogeochemical cycles and serving as the origin of many anthropogenic impacts on…

Main variables and Earth System components

Biosphere Land

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • N/A

    • Domain

    • N/A

    • Collections

    • N/A
Map of linear trend in R99p https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadex3/images/HadEX3_R99p_1901-2018_ADW_61-90_1.25x1.875deg_Ann_trend.png HadEX3: Gridded Temperature and Precipitation Climate Extremes Indices (CLIMDEX data)

  • Years of record

  • to

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/Thaw
contribution from each of the different evaporation components in GLEAM for 1980-2022 (contributed by A Koppa and D Miralles) Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM)

  • Years of record

  • to

The Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM) is a satellite remote sensing-based set of algorithms dedicated to the estimation of evaporation and soil moisture at…

Main variables and Earth System components

Biosphere land evaporation Land evapotranspiration Soil Moisture

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • Daily

    • Collections

    • N/A
The monthly averaged downscaled 1 km and 9 km SMAP SM of descending overpass (6 a.m.) from 2020 in Danube River basin. (contributed by Bin Fang and Venkat Lakshmi) SMAP-Derived 1-km Downscaled Surface Soil Moisture

  • Years of record

  • to

This data product contains global daily 1 km resolution surface soil moisture (SM) derived from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) L-band radiometer observations.…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Soil Moisture

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • Daily

    • Collections

    • N/A
maps of SIF and GPP (contributed by Jingfeng Xiao and Xing Li) Global dataset of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (GOSIF)

  • Years of record

  • to

GOSIF is a global, gridded dataset of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF). SIF, an energy flux re-emitted by plants a few nanoseconds after light absorption,…

Main variables and Earth System components

Biosphere GPP: Gross Primary Production solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) Land Gross Primary Production

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • Monthly, Weekly

    • Collections

    • N/A
NCEP NARR NCEP NARR

  • 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-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
Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR) Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR)

  • 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 versions of…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Cryosphere Land Soil Moisture

    • Timestep

    • Sub-daily, Monthly

    • Collections

    • N/A

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)

  • Years of record

  • N/A

The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) uses readily available temperature and precipitation data to estimate relative dryness. It is a standardized index that generally…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Drought
Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)

  • 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 is closely…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation Land Drought

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • Monthly

    • Domain

    • N/A

    • Collections

    • N/A
Freshwater Discharge: 1948-2004 Freshwater Discharge: 1948-2004

  • Years of record

  • to

"A dataset of historical monthly streamflow at the farthest downstream stations for the world’s 925 largest ocean-reaching rivers has been created for community use.…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Runoff and Streamflow

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI) U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI)

  • Years of record

  • to

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
COREv2 Air-Sea Surface Fluxes COREv2 Air-Sea Surface Fluxes

  • Years of record

  • to

The Coordinated Ocean Research Experiments version 2  (COREv2) data set consists of a globally complete set of air-sea fluxes of momentum, heat and freshwater for 1948-…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Evaporation Precipitation Radiation Wind Stress Land Runoff and Streamflow Ocean Surface Flux
CERES: IGBP Land Classification CERES: IGBP Land Classification

  • Years of record

  • N/A

The International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP) defines ecosystems surface classifications. The CERES (Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System)10-minute data can be…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Land Cover Type Vegetation Cover

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Snow Cover Extent (Northern Hemisphere) Climate Data Record, by Rutgers Snow Cover Extent (Northern Hemisphere) Climate Data Record, by Rutgers

  • Years of record

  • to

The Snow Cover Extent Climate Data Record extends from the late 1960s to present. Historical analyses based on visual inspection have been digitized and combined with modern…

Main variables and Earth System components

Cryosphere Snow Cover Land
Permafrost: Circum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground Ice Conditions Permafrost: Circum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground Ice Conditions

  • Years of record

  • N/A

The circumpolar permafrost and ground ice data contribute to a unified international data set that depicts the distribution and properties of permafrost and ground ice in…

Main variables and Earth System components

Cryosphere Permafrost Land

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Climate Data Guide Randolph Glacier Inventory data base of global glacier outlines

  • Years of record

  • N/A

The Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) is a global data base of glacier outlines. It is intended for estimates of ice volume and glacier mass at regional and global scales.…

Main variables and Earth System components

Cryosphere Glaciers Land

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Global Permafrost Zonation Index Map Global Permafrost Zonation Index Map

  • Years of record

  • N/A

This data set contains a global (excluding Antarctica) 1 km map of permafrost zonation. It is an estimate of to what degree permafrost exists in a region nearly everywhere,…

Main variables and Earth System components

Cryosphere Permafrost Land
GRACE: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment: Surface mass, total water storage, and derived variables GRACE: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment: Surface mass, total water storage, and derived variables

  • Years of record

  • to

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) refers to a pair of NASA satellites that has flown in low-Earth orbit since 2002. The satellites use a precise microwave…

Main variables and Earth System components

Cryosphere Glaciers Ice Sheet Mass Land Groundwater surface water Water Storage Ocean Bottom pressure
CRU sc-PDSI (self-calibrating PDSI) over Europe & North America CRU sc-PDSI (self-calibrating PDSI) over Europe & North America

  • Years of record

  • to

Maps of the monthly self-calibrating Palmer drought severity index (SCPDSI) have been calculated for the period 1901–2002 for the contiguous United States (20°–50°N and 130…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Drought

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Landscape surface freeze/thaw status based on passive microwave remote sensing Landscape surface freeze/thaw status based on passive microwave remote sensing

  • Years of record

  • to

A global data set of the frozen state of the land surface (free-thaw (FT) status) has been developed spanning 1979-present at a daily timestep and 25 x 25 km spatial…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Freeze/Thaw
Historical land-cover changes and land-use conversions global data set by Meiyappan and Jain Historical land-cover changes and land-use conversions global data set by Meiyappan and Jain

  • Years of record

  • to

A set of three estimates of land-cover types and annual transformations of land use are provided on a global 0.5°x0.5° grid at annual timesteps. The longest of the three…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Land Cover Type Land Use Conversion Vegetation Cover

    • Timestep

    • Annual

    • Collections

    • N/A
Carbon Emissions from Historical Land-Use and Land-Use Change Carbon Emissions from Historical Land-Use and Land-Use Change

  • Years of record

  • to

Annual net land-atmosphere carbon flux and net flux of carbon to the atmosphere due to land-use and land-use change (LULUC) are estimated using an integrated assessment…

Main variables and Earth System components

Biosphere CO2 Land CO2 Land-Atmosphere flux Land Cover Type Land Use Conversion

    • Timestep

    • Annual

    • Collections

    • N/A
LANDSAT LANDSAT

  • Years of record

  • to

"The Landsat Program provides the longest continuous space-based record of Earth’s land in existence. Since 1972, Landsat satellites have collected measurements of Earth’s…

Main variables and Earth System components

Biosphere NPP: Net Primary Production Land Land Cover Type Vegetation Cover

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A