The goal of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) is to construct quality-controlled, and spatially and temporally consistent, land-surface model (LSM) datasets from the best available observations and model output to support modeling activities. Data sets are available on hourly, daily, monthly and climatological time scales. NLDAS products are used in modeling, research, and applications, such as drought and flood monitoring, watershed and water quality management, and case studies of extreme events.
There are two phases referred to as NLDAS-1 and NLDAS-2. The latter spans January 1979-present. "NLDAS (Mitchell et al., 2004; Xia et al., 2012) integrates a large quantity of observation based and model reanalysis data to drive offline (not coupled to the atmosphere) land surface models (LSMs), and executes at 1/8th-degree grid spacing over central North America."
Years of Record
Timestep
Data Time Period Extended?
Domain
Spatial Resolution
Ocean or Land
Vertical Levels
Input Data
Data Access: Please Cite data sources, following the data providers' instructions.
- Xia et al (2012): Continental-scale water and energy flux analysis and validation for the North American Land Data Assimilation System project phase 2 (NLDAS-2): 1. Intercomparison and application of model products, J. Geophys. Res., 117, D03109
- Mitchell et al (2004. The multi-institution North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS): Utilizing multiple GCIP products and partners in a continental distributed hydrological modeling system, J. Geophys. Res., 109, D07S90
- Rodell et al (2004): The Global Land Data Assimilation System, Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 85(3): 381-394
- Rui (2013): README for NLDAS-1
- Rui and Mocko (2014): README for NLDAS-2
