Observational Data in BAMS State of the Climate
The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) publishes a report known as the BAMS State of the Climate each year detailing the state of the climate over the previous year. This annual assessment began in 1996 and serves as a comprehensive and accessible resource for state-of-the-art and current observations of the Earth system. The 2024 report was written by 590 authors from 58 countries and has figures and discussion on each observed component of the Earth system with reliable data through 2024. The report discusses these variables both at global and regional scales with additional sections focusing on the tropics, the Arctic, and Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
Many of the datasets used in the BAMS State of the Climate are documented here in the NSF NCAR Climate Data Guide. This remainder of this page serves as both an abridged listing of data used within the State of the Climate report as well as a landing page to direct readers to more information on each dataset.
Please contact us if you would like to contribute to any of these pages, particularly those listed as in prep.
Global Temperature |
|
|---|---|
| Near-Surface Temperature (Observed) | Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature |
| HadCRUT5 Global Temperature | |
| NASA GISTEMPv4 Global Temperature | |
| NOAA GlobalTEMP (page in prep) | |
| Near-Surface Temperature (Renalysis) | ERA5 |
| JRA-55 | |
| JRA-3Q (page in prep) | |
| Lake Temperature | (pages in prep) |
| Nighttime Marine Air Temperature | CLASSnmat |
| UAHNMATv1 | |
| Upper-Atmosphere Temperature | Stratospheric Temperature Datasets |
| Equivalent Surface Temperature | HadISDH.land |
Cryosphere |
|
|---|---|
| Permafrost and Active Layer Thickness | GTN-P (page in prep) |
| Rock Glacier Velocity | (pages in prep) |
| Alpine Glacier Mass | WGMS reference glaciers |
| Snow Properties | (pages in prep) |
Global Hydrological Cycle |
|
|---|---|
| Surface Humidity | HadISDH |
| ERA5 | |
| JRA-55/JRA-3Q | |
| MERRA-2 | |
| Total Column Water Vapor | TCWV Overview |
| Precipitation (Observed) | GPCC (expansion in prep) |
| GPCP | |
| HadEX3 | |
| Precipitation (Renalysis) | ERA5 |
| MERRA-2 | |
| Cloud Properties | Clouds Overview |
| Lake Water Storage | GloLakes |
Global Oceans |
|
|---|---|
| Sea Surface Temperature | DCENT v1.0 |
| HadSSTv4 | |
| NOAA ERSSTv5 | |
| NOAA OISSTv2.1 | |
| Ocean Heat Content | Argo Temperature Profiles |
| (pages in prep) | |
| Salinity | Argo Salinity Profiles |
| (pages in prep) | |
| Air-Sea Fluxes | (pages in prep) |
| Sea Level | GRACE Ocean Mass |
| Tide Gauge Data | |
| Surface Currents | (pages in prep) |
| Overturning Circulation | AMOC Overview |
| Ocean Phytoplankton | (pages in prep) |
| Ocean Carbon Cycle | Argo BGC (page in prep) |
Cite this page
Acknowledgement of any material taken from or knowledge gained from this page is appreciated:
National Center for Atmospheric Research Staff (Eds). Last modified "The Climate Data Guide: Observational Data in BAMS State of the Climate.” Retrieved from https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/observational-data-bams-state-climate on 2025-12-28.
Citation of datasets is separate and should be done according to the data providers' instructions. If known to us, data citation instructions are given in the Data Access section, above.
Acknowledgement of the Climate Data Guide project is also appreciated:
Schneider, D. P., C. Deser, J. Fasullo, and K. E. Trenberth, 2013: Climate Data Guide Spurs Discovery and Understanding. Eos Trans. AGU, 94, 121–122, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013eo130001