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Kaplan Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies
Years of Record: 1855/12 to 2016/07
The most up-to-date version is known as Kaplan Extended SST v2, which combines statistically infilled grids of UK Met Office SSTs for 1856-1981 with a statistically reduced and coarser resolution version of Smith and Reynolds Optimally Interpolated (OI) SSTs for 1981 to present. Those desiring only...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Kaplan, Alexy
LANDSAT
Years of Record: 1972/01 to 2013/09
"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 continents and surrounding coastal regions that have enabled people to study forests, food production, water and land use,...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Timestep: Sub-daily
Domain: Global
Collections: Carbon cycle
Landscape surface freeze/thaw status based on passive microwave remote sensing
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2011/09
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 resolution. Based on passive microwave remote sensing, the FT parameter is closely related to the surface energy budget, hydrologic...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary | GeoTIFF | HDF
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Global
Collections: Climate Data Record
See Expert Guidance by Kimball, John
Liquid Water Path (LWP): UWisc climatology
Years of Record: 1998/01 to 2008/12
"This work describes a new climatology of cloud liquid water path (LWP), termed the University of Wisconsin (UWisc) climatology, derived from 18 yr of satellite-based passive microwave observations over the global oceans. The climatology is based on a modern retrieval methodology applied...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics
Liquid Water Path: Overview
Liquid water path (LWP) is one of the most important variables for modeling the atmosphere. LWP is measure of the weight of the liquid water droplets in the atmosphere above a unit surface area on the earth, given in units of kg m−2 (AMS Glossary). It is critical for understanding...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Livneh gridded precipitation and other meteorological variables for continental US, Mexico and southern Canada
Years of Record: 1950/01 to 2013/12
The Livneh et al. (2015) hydrometeorological dataset consists of gridded daily and monthly precipitation, maximum and minimum air temperature, and wind speed for the continental US, southern Canada, and Mexico for the period 1950-2013. Gridded at 1/16° horizontal resolution (~ 6km), the data have...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Daily,Monthly
Domain: North America
See Expert Guidance by Livneh, Ben
Marshall Southern Annular Mode (SAM) Index (Station-based)
Years of Record: 1957/01 to 2015/09
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 index measures a "see-saw" of atmospheric mass between the middle and high latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. Positive values of...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Domain: Antarctic, SH - Southern Hemisphere, Southern Ocean
See Expert Guidance by Marshall, Gareth
MEaSUREs Northern Hemisphere Terrestrial Snow Cover Extent Daily 25km EASE-Grid 2.0
Years of Record: 1999/01 to 2012/01
"This data set offers users 25 km Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent represented by four different variables. Three of the snow cover variables are derived from the Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System, MODIS Cloud Gap Filled Snow Cover, and passive microwave brightness...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Daily
Domain: NH - Northern Hemisphere
MEaSUREs: Northern Hemisphere Terrestrial Snow Cover Extent Weekly 100km EASE-Grid 2.0
Years of Record: 1966/10 to 2012/12
"This data set offers users weekly 100 km Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent represented by three different variables. Two of the variables are derived from individual source products: the NOAA/NCDC Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover Extent Climate Data Record and Defense Meteorological Satellite...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Weekly
Domain: NH - Northern Hemisphere
Collections: Climate Data Record
Merged Hadley-NOAA/OI Sea Surface Temperature & Sea-Ice Concentration (Hurrell et al, 2008)
Years of Record: 1869/12 to 2020/08
The merged Hadley-OI sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice concentration (SIC) data sets were specifically developed as surface forcing data sets for AMIP style uncoupled simulations of the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM). The Hadley Centre's SST/SIC version 1.1 (HADISST1), which is derived...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global, Antarctic, Arctic, NH - Northern Hemisphere, SH - Southern Hemisphere
Collections: Boundary Conditions, CMIP5-recommended, AMIP, Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics, oceandiagnostics
Meridional Modes and their indices
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) gradient and zonal surface winds. These variations consist of recognizable climate modes, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Domain: Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean
See Expert Guidance by Amaya, Dillon
MJO: Madden-Julian Oscillation Diagnostics
"The Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) is the largest element of the intraseasonal (30–90 days) variability in the tropical atmosphere. It is a large-scale coupling between atmospheric circulation and tropical deep convection.[1][2] Rather than being a standing pattern (like ENSO) it is a traveling...
MOCHA: Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) and Heatflux Array
Years of Record: 2004/04 to 2012/10
"MOCHA is a collaborative project, partnered with the UK RAPID Program, to measure the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) and ocean heat transport in the North Atlantic Ocean ."
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Sub-daily
Domain: Atlantic Ocean
MODIS GPP/NPP Project (MOD17)
Years of Record: 2000/01 to 2012/12
The goal of the MOD17 MODIS project is to provide continuous estimates of Gross/Net Primary Production (GPP/NPP) across Earth’s entire vegetated land surface. MOD17 GPP/NPP outputs are useful for natural resource and land management, global carbon cycle analysis, ecosystem status assessment, and...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: HDF-EOS
Timestep: Monthly,Weekly,Annual
Domain: Global
MSU/AMSU Atmospheric Temperature Climate Data Record, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS)
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2012/12
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 Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) and Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU). This page describes the data sets developed by Remote...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii | binary
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Climate Data Record
See Expert Guidance by Mears, Carl
Multivariate ENSO Index
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2019/05
The Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) is said to capture a more holistic representation of the atmospheric and oceanic anomalies that occur during ENSO events than do single-variables timeseries like the NinoSST indices. The MEIv2 is based on five variables from the tropical Pacific. These five...
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Pacific Ocean
NASA Energy and Water cycle Study (NEWS) Climatology of the 1st Decade of the 21st Century Dataset
Years of Record: 1998/01 to 2010/12
This data set summarizes the original observation-based mean fluxes of Water and Energy Budget (WEB) components during the first decade of the 21st century (specifically: 1998-2010), for each continent and ocean basin. These data are summarized on both monthly and annual scales, as well as...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii | Spreadsheet
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly,Annual
Domain: Africa, Antarctic, Asia, Atlantic Ocean, Australia, Europe, Indian Ocean, Maritime Continent, North America, South America
NASA MERRA
Years of Record: 1978/12 to 2016/01
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 place observations from NASA’s Earth Observing System satellites into a climate context and to improve upon the hydrologic...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | HDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics, Obs4MIPS
NASA Satellite Product Levels
NASA data products are categorized into different "Levels". These are product dependent but the following description for OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument) data products is a general guideline:Level-1B (L1B): Products containing geolocated and calibrated spectral radiance and solar irradiance...
NASA's MERRA2 reanalysis
Years of Record: 1980/01 to 2017/11
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 Assimilation Office (GMAO). It spans the satellite observing era from 1980 to the present. The goals of MERRA-2 are to provide a...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Bosilovich, Michael | See Expert Guidance by Cullather, Richard
NCAR Sea Level Pressure
Years of Record: 1899/01 to 2022/03
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 plus empirical corrections for changes in instrumentation and station location.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii | binary
Domain: NH - Northern Hemisphere
See Expert Guidance by Hurrell, James | See Expert Guidance by Trenberth, Kevin
NCEP NARR
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2022/05
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 cycle and land-atmosphere interaction. As such, it can be considered a second generation reanalysis. A unique feature is the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: GRIB
Timestep: Climatology,Sub-daily,Monthly
Domain: North America
NCEP Reanalysis (R2)
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2022/05
NCEP-DOE Reanalysis II (R2) is an improved version of the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis I (R1). The improvements include an updated model with better physical parameterizations, assorted data assimilation errors were fixed and additional data were included. Still, it is still a 'first generation' product.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | GRIB
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
NCEP-NCAR (R1): An Overview
Years of Record: 1948/01 to 2022/05
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 database was enhanced (additional, quality checked datasets) by NCAR's Data Support Section. Originally planned to span 1957-96 ("40-Year...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | GRIB
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics
NDVI and EVI: Vegetation Indices (MODIS)
Years of Record: 2002/02 to 2018/03
MODIS vegetation indices, produced on 16-day and monthly intervals and at multiple spatial resolutions, provide consistent spatial and temporal comparisons of vegetation canopy greenness, a composite property of leaf area, chlorophyll and canopy structure. Two vegetation indices are derived from...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: HDF-EOS
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Weekly
Domain: Global
NDVI: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index-3rd generation: NASA/GFSC GIMMS
Years of Record: 1981/07 to 2015/12
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index-3rd generation (NDVI) using the Global Inventory Monitoring and Modeling System (GIMMS): Vegetation indices are radiometric measures of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by chlorophyll in the green leaves of vegetation canopies and are...
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Global
Collections: Climate Data Record
NDVI: Normalized-difference-vegetation-index: NOAA AVHRR
Years of Record: 1981/06 to 2018/03
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values are derived from surface reflectance data acquired by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor. By applying knowledge gathered over time about instrument performance and sensor characteristics, the data are reprocessed to...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | GeoTIFF
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Global
Nino SST Indices (Nino 1+2, 3, 3.4, 4; ONI and TNI)
Years of Record: 1869/12 to 2018/10
There are several indices used to monitor the tropical Pacific, all of which are based on SST anomalies averaged across a given region. Usually the anomalies are computed relative to a base period of 30 years. The Niño 3.4 index and the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) are the most...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Pacific Ocean, Tropics
See Expert Guidance by Trenberth, Kevin
NLDAS: North American Land Data Assimilation System
Years of Record: 1980/01 to 2014/12
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...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | GRIB
Timestep: Climatology,Sub-daily,Monthly
Domain: North America
NOAA 20th-Century Reanalysis, Version 2 and 2c
Years of Record: 1850/11 to 2014/12
The Twentieth Century Reanalysis (20CR) provides a comprehensive global atmospheric circulation data set spanning 1850-2014. Its chief motivation is to provide an observational validation data set, with quantified uncertainties, for assessing climate model simulations of the 20th century, with...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | GRIB
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics, climatevariabilitydiagnostics(CVDP)
NOAA ThreadEx Long-term Station Extremes for America
Years of Record: 1869/12 to 2011/12
ThreadEx is a data set of extreme daily temperature and precipitation values for 270 locations in the United States. For each day of the year at each station, ThreadEx provides the top 3 record high and low daily maximum temperatures, the top 3 record high and low daily minimum temperatures, the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Daily
Domain: North America
North Pacific (NP) Index by Trenberth and Hurrell; monthly and winter
Years of Record: 1899/01 to 2022/03
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 interannual to decadal variations in the atmospheric circulation. The dominant atmosphere-ocean relation in the North Pacific is one where...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Monthly,Seasonal
Domain: NH - Northern Hemisphere, Pacific Ocean
See Expert Guidance by Hurrell, James
NSIDC Sea Ice Index
Years of Record: 1978/10 to 2022/04
The NSIDC Sea Ice Index is a suite of easy-to-use sea ice analyses to track changes in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. The product is produced and supported by the NOAA at NSIDC group and consists of browse imagery and data text files (CSV or Excel format). The input data is from two sources...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii | csv | GeoTIFF | Image | shapefile
Timestep: Daily,Monthly
Domain: Antarctic, Arctic
See Expert Guidance by Meier, Walter
OAFlux: Objectively Analyzed air-sea Fluxes for the global oceans.
Years of Record: 1958/01 to 2012/12
"The OAFlux project aims to provide consistent, multi-decade, global analysis of air-sea heat, freshwater (evaporation), and momentum fluxes for use in studies of global energy budget, water cycle, atmosphere and ocean circulation, and climate. The OAFlux project is so called because it applies...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Ocean heat content for 10-1500m depth based on Argo
Years of Record: 2005/01 to 2011/12
A regularly updated monthly timeseries of ocean heat content, based on Argo profiles, is integrated over 10-1500m depth and the latitudes 60°S-60°N. Coverage begins in 2005. It is estimated based on the method described in von Schuckmann and Le Traon (2011) and discussed in the context of other...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by von Schuckmann, Karina
Ocean Productivity: Phytoplankton size estimates (satellite)
Years of Record: 2013/09
Estimates of ocean net primary production (NPP) "At this time, Standard Products are based on the original description of the Vertically Generalized Production Model (VGPM) ( Behrenfeld & Falkowski 1997a), MODIS surface chlorophyll concentrations (Chlsat), MODIS sea surface temperature...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: HDF
Timestep: Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Carbon cycle
Ocean temperature analysis and heat content estimate from Institute of Atmospheric Physics
Years of Record: 1940/01 to 2016/12
The Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) ocean temperature analysis features global coverage of the oceans, at 1° x1° horizontal resolution on 41 vertical levels from 1-2000m, and monthly resolution from 1940 to present. As such, it is aimed at studies of climate variability and change,...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Cheng, Lijing
ORAS4: ECMWF Ocean Reanalysis and derived ocean heat content
Years of Record: 1958/01 to 2013/04
ECMWF's current ocean reanalysis uses a sophisticated data assimilation methodology which includes a model bias correction. The ocean model used is forced by atmospheric daily surface fluxes, relaxed to SST and bias corrected.
The Balmaseda et al (QJRMS 2013) reference provides excellent peer...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR): HIRS
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2012/12
"The new Climate Data Record (CDR) provides daily global climate data that are valuable as inputs into Radiation Budget Studies and verifying numerical models and can identify the variations in tropical clouds and rainfall that drive global weather patterns. The daily climate data of OLR can...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Climate Data Record
Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR): AVHRR
Years of Record: 1974/06 to 2013/12
OLR (Outgoing Longwave Radiation) is a measure of the amount of energy emitted to space by earth's surface, oceans and atmosphere. As such, it is a critical component of the earth's radiation budget. In a different context, OLR values are often used as a proxy for convection in tropical and...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Climatology,Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
Overview: Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Data Sets
Years of Record: 1958/01 to 2012/09
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 ice cores, and these records extend back hundreds of thousands of years. More recently, CO2 is being sampled by satellites providing global...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Annual
Collections: Boundary Conditions, Carbon cycle, Overview / Comparison page
Overview: Climate Indices
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 methods have been used to derive assorted indices. Classically, selected station, grid point or regional average data have been used (eg.,...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Collections: Overview / Comparison page
Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO): Definition and Indices
Years of Record: 1900/01 to 2015/12
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is defined by the leading pattern (EOF) of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the North Pacific basin (typically, polewards of 20°N). The SST anomalies are obtained by removing both the climatological annual cycle and the global-mean SST anomaly...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Pacific Ocean
See Expert Guidance by Deser, Clara | See Expert Guidance by Trenberth, Kevin
PACIFICA: PACIFic ocean Interior CArbon
Years of Record: 1988/01 to 2000/12
PACIFICA (PACIFic ocean Interior CArbon) was an international collaborative project for the data synthesis of ocean interior carbon and its related parameters in the Pacific Ocean. The North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES), Section of Carbon and Climate (S-CC) supported the project. We...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Sub-daily
Domain: Pacific Ocean
Collections: Carbon cycle
Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)
The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) uses readily available temperature and precipitation data to estimate relative dryness. It is a standardized index that generally spans -10 (dry) to +10 (wet). Maps of operational agencies like NOAA typically show a range of -4 to +4, but more extreme values...
Formats: netCDF | ascii | binary
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
See Expert Guidance by Dai, Aiguo
Permafrost: Circum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground Ice Conditions
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 the Northern Hemisphere (20°N to 90°N). The re-gridded data set shows discontinuous, sporadic, or isolated permafrost boundaries.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary | shapefile
Timestep: Climatology
Domain: NH - Northern Hemisphere
PERSIANN-CDR: Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks - Climate Data Record
Years of Record: 1983/01 to 2021/09
The Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks- Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR) provides daily rainfall estimates at a spatial resolution of 0.25 degrees in the latitude band 60S - 60N from 1983 to the near-present. The precipitation...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily
Domain: Global
Collections: Climate Data Record
See Expert Guidance by Ashouri, Hamed | See Expert Guidance by Gehne, Maria
Precipitation Data Sets: Overview & Comparison table
Precipitation (rain, snow, hail, ...) is one of the key components of the hydrological cycle. Its societal importance cannot be over stated. For climate research, precipitation is one of the key terms for balancing the energy budget, and one of the most challenging aspects of climate modeling....
Main variables and Earth System components:
Collections: Overview / Comparison page
Precipitation Reconstruction Land (PREC/L): 1948-present
Years of Record: 1948/01 to 2022/04
Precipitation gauge measurements over land from the GHCN-v2 (Global Historical Climatology Network version 2) are interpolated onto 3 grids: at 0.5, 1 and 2.5 degree resolutions via optimal interpolation. Note: As of May, 2011 the GHCN version 3 station data set is available.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii | binary
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics
PRISM High-Resolution Spatial Climate Data for the United States: Max/min temp, dewpoint, precipitation
Years of Record: 1895/01 to 2019/08
PRISM is a set of monthly, yearly, and single-event gridded data products of mean temperature and precipitation, max/min temperatures, and dewpoints, primarily for the United States. In-situ point measurements are ingested into the PRISM (Parameter elevation Regression on Independent Slopes Model)...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ARC/INFO ASCII GRID
Timestep: Climatology,Daily,Monthly
Domain: North America
See Expert Guidance by Daly, Christopher