Climate Data
The Climate Data Guide is a high-traffic expert knowledge portal providing concise and reliable information on the climate data that are essential for measuring and predicting physical climate risk.
Currently, the Climate Data Guide curates expert insights on over 200 observational datasets and climate indices, searchable or browseable in the list below.
To find a specific dataset or climate variable, jump to the the search box. For only the datasets paired with guidance written by experts, select the "Datasets with guidance" button when using the search box.
Data creators, data publishers, and scientists who use climate data are invited to join our Network of Experts by contributing commentaries on data strengths and limitations to the Climate Data Guide. What type of data are included? See this discussion.
With the exception of about 25 climate indices, the Climate Data Guide does not host datasets. Data cannot be downloaded from this site. However, links are provided to download locations under the "Data Access" section of each dataset page.
Citation: Please link to this website in your work that draws upon material from this website, and cite this paper:
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.
=> Additionally, each dataset page with expert-written guidance has its own citation example on the individual page, such that the experts who wrote the guidance may be credited. Finally, responsible use and citation of datasets is strongly encouraged.
Climate datasets
Years of record
AIRS provides satellite retrieval of mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide even under cloudy conditions, without the use of a priori information from models. AIRS retrievals use cloud-cleared thermal IR radiance spectra in the 15 micron band with an accuracy better than 2 ppm.…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere CO Ozone: Tropospheric Biosphere CH4-Methane CO CO2-
Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Carbon cycle
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
The NOAA Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) provides global, spatially complete SST data at a monthly timestep for 1854-present. Version3 is based upon statistical interpolation of the ICOADS release 2.4 data. Version 3 includes satellite AVHRR SST…
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Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Huang, Boyin | Livermore, Jay | Smith, Tom
Years of record
- to
The Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere program (TOGA) is a component of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) aimed specifically at the prediction of climate phenomena on time scales of months to years. In order to achieve the TOGA goals, a strategy of large-scale,…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Precipitation Radiation Relative Humidity Sea Level Pressure Wind Ocean Absolute Dynamic Topography (ADT) Ocean Heat Content SST - sea surface temperature Salinity Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface Temperature u, v current componentsExperts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) project has generated decadal-length, global, gridded data sets of temperature and specific humidity for several standard levels in the troposphere for the obs4MIPS project. This obs4MIPS version of the AIRS data are available at…
Experts contributing reviews
- Tian, Baijun
Years of record
ICOADS (International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set) is the most comprehensive archive of global marine surface climate observations available. Variables include SST, SLP, air temperature, wind speed, cloud amount, and others. There is no processing beyond…
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
- to
"The CMCC Global Ocean Physical Reanalysis System (C-GLORS) is used to simulate the state of the ocean in the last decades. It consists of a variational data assimilation system (OceanVar), capable of assimilating all in-situ observations along with altimetry data,…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Ocean Heat Content SST - sea surface temperature Salinity Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface Temperature mixed layer depth sea surface height u, v current componentsExperts contributing reviews
- Storto, Andrea
Years of record
- to
The Southern Ocean State Estimate (SOSE) is a model-generated best fit to Southern Ocean observations. As such, it provides a quantitatively useful climatology of the mean-state of the Southern Ocean. Technically, SOSE is a solution to the MITgcm. SOSE is…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean 3D Velocity Bottom pressure SST - sea surface temperature Salinity Sub Surface Temperature mixed layer depth sea surface height u, v current components Wind Stress-
Formats
- binary
-
Timestep
- Daily, Monthly, Weekly, Annual
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Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- Mazloff, Matthew
Years of record
- to
The NOAA Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) provides global, spatially complete SST data at a monthly timestep for 1854-present. Compared to the previous version, Version 4 uses the more extensive ICOADS Release 2.5 data and revised quality…
Experts contributing reviews
- Huang, Boyin
Years of record
- to
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is scanning instrument that makes measurements in 36 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared at spatial resolutions from 250 m to 1 km. There are MODIS instruments aboard two sun-synchronous polar-…
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Timestep
- Daily, Monthly, Weekly
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Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics, Obs4MIPS
Experts contributing reviews
- Pincus, Robert
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 canopy greenness, a composite property of leaf area, chlorophyll and canopy structure. Two vegetation…
Main variables and Earth System components
Land Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) NDVI" Normalized Difference Vegetation IndexExperts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
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…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Ocean Heat Content Salinity Sea Level potential temperature u, v current components-
Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Climate Analysis Section (CAS) Data Catalog
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
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…
Experts contributing reviews
- Meier, Walter
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°–60°W) and Europe (35°–70°N, 10°W–60°E) with a spatial resolution of 0.5° × 0.5°
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Formats
- ascii
-
Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Europe, North America
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
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 (…
Main variables and Earth System components
Cryosphere Sea Ice Concentration Ocean SST - sea surface temperature-
Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Monthly
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
HadSST3 provides monthly SST anomalies on a 5°x5° grid for 1850-present. The anomalies are derived from a 30-year climatology spanning 1961-90.Coverage is global but there is no interpolation; Thus, missing data occur in the final product. The primary input data are from…
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Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
Experts contributing reviews
- Kennedy, John
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 present, the CEI evaluates the percent area of extremes in the distribution of much above/below average…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Wind Land Drought-
Formats
- ascii
-
Timestep
- Monthly, Seasonal, Annual
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- Gleason, Karin
Years of record
- to
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…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Ocean Heat Content Sea Level Sub Surface TemperatureExperts contributing reviews
- Cheng, Lijing
Years of record
- to
The COBE data set is a spatially complete, interpolated 1°x1° SST product for 1891 to present. It combines SSTs from ICOADS release 2.0, the Japanese Kobe collection, and reports from ships and buoys. Data are gridded using optimal interpolation. As in HadISST, data up to…
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
"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…
Main variables and Earth System components
-
Formats
-
Timestep
-
Domain
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
A global (82S-82N) cloud fraction data set, providing a unique view of cloud vertical structure, has been developed based on the complimentary spaceborne remote sensing capabilities of the CloudSat radar and the CALISPSO lidar. The data set provides monthly mean cloud…
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Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Monthly, Seasonal, Annual
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- Bertrand, Leah | Kay, Jennifer
Years of record
World Ocean Atlas 2009 (WOA09) is a set of objectively analyzed (1 degree grid) climatological fields of in situ temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, Apparent Oxygen Utilization (AOU), percent oxygen saturation, phosphate, silicate, and nitrate at standard depth levels…
Main variables and Earth System components
Ocean Dissolved Oxygen SST - sea surface temperature Salinity Sub Surface Salinity Sub Surface Temperature oxygen saturation phosphate silicate-
Timestep
- Climatology, Monthly, Seasonal, Annual
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, oceandiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- None
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) variance, and it is clearly dominated by the NAO structure in the Atlantic sector. Although there are some subtle…
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Formats
- ascii
-
Timestep
- Seasonal
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- Phillips, Adam
Years of record
- to
HadISD ("Hadley Centre Integrated Surface Database") is a compendium of subdaily weather-station data developed by the UK Met Office that is based on NOAA NCEI's Integrated Surface Database but with various quality-control checks implemented to remove stations with…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature at 2m Dew Point Temperature Precipitation Sea Level Pressure Storm data WindExperts contributing reviews
- Raymond, Colin
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-lon grid for regions such as North America, Europe, and Australia, these centuries-long datasets are…
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Timestep
- Annual
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- Cook, Edward
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 assimilated include surface pressures from the International Surface Pressure Databank v3.2.6 and ICOADS v…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Multiple variables Cryosphere Sea Ice Concentration OceanExperts contributing reviews
- Laloyaux, Patrick
Years of record
Cloud processes and feedbacks are recognized as the largest uncertainty in climate model projections of climate change. Progress in understanding the roles of clouds in climate change has in part been hampered by the lack of a consistent definition of clouds and cloud…
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Formats
-
Timestep
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- Kay, Jennifer
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 climate monitoring, climate change detection and attribution studies and climate model evaluation.…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature at 2m Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Land Freeze/ThawExperts contributing reviews
- Dunn, Robert
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 1948-2009 at monthly resolution. This data set serves as a set of common atmospheric boundary…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Evaporation Precipitation Radiation Wind Stress Land Runoff and Streamflow Ocean Surface Flux-
Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, atmosdiagnostics, oceandiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- Yeager, Stephen
Years of record
- to
Spanning 1871-present at monthly timesteps, HadISST provides the longest gridded sea ice data available for both the Arctic and Antarctic. It is a 1° x 1° spatially infilled data set that is It is intended as a consistent analyses for input into SST analyses or as boundary…
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Timestep
- Monthly
-
Collections
- Boundary Conditions
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
The global mean sea level timeseries is an excellent, integrative indicator of climate change, providing a record independent of common metrics like global surface air temperature. The major contributions to the observed sea level trend of 3.3 mm/year include the…
Experts contributing reviews
- Nerem, R.S.
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 the ERA-Interim reanalysis, although other datasets, including climate models, could be used. …
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Formats
- ascii
-
Timestep
- Seasonal, Annual
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- Bracegirdle, Thomas J.
Years of record
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 the planet. Comprising complex and interactive organic and inorganic systems (soils, rocks, water…
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Formats
-
Timestep
-
Domain
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- Mankin, Justin | Lesk, Corey
Years of record
- to
CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations ) was launched on April 28, 2006 to study the impact of clouds and aerosols on the Earth's radiation budget and climate. It flies in formation with five other satellites in the international "A-…
Experts contributing reviews
- None
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 the Polar Weather Forecast Model (PWRF) and the WRF-VAR and High Resolution Land Data Assimilation (…
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
"CLARA-A1 (CLoud, Albedo and RAdiation dataset, AVHRR-based, version 1) is a global dataset of cloud properties, surface albedo and surface radiation products, generated by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF). The products are derived…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Cloud Properties Liquid Water Path Radiation Surface albedo-
Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Daily, Monthly, Pentad
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- Stengel, Martin
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 climate change detection and attribution studies and climate model evaluation. Twenty-nine indices,…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Land Freeze/ThawExperts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
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…
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Timestep
- Climatology
-
Domain
- NH - Northern Hemisphere
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- None
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 irradiance (DNI) and the effective cloud albedo (CAL) derived from satellite observations of the visible channels…
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Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly
-
Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
CloudSat is a satellite mission designed to measure the vertical structure of clouds from space. The radar data produces detailed images of cloud structures. CloudSat is one of a constellation of satellites known as the A-Train (Cloudsat, CALIPSO, PARASOL, Aqua, Aura,…
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
Speleothems provide globally distributed, seasonal to multi-annual resolution climate records encoded in multiple proxies including oxygen and carbon stable isotopes, and trace elements. Speleothems, such as stalagmites and flowstones, are secondary cave carbonate deposits…
Main variables and Earth System components
-
Formats
-
Timestep
- Annual, Decadal, Irregular
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Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- Kaushal, Nikita | Lechleitner, Franziska
Years of record
As defined by a US National Research Council committee, a Climate Data Record (CDR) is "a time series of measurements of sufficient length, consistency and continuity to determine climate variability and change." In the US, agencies such as NASA and NOAA have sponsored…
Main variables and Earth System components
-
Formats
-
Timestep
-
Domain
-
Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
The Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data (HOAPS) set is a satellite-based climatology of precipitation, evaporation and freshwater budget (evaporation minus precipitation) as well as related turbulent heat fluxes and atmospheric state…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Evaporation Evaporation-Precipitation Precipitation Radiation Specific Humidity Wind Latent & sensible heat flux Precipitable water Ocean SST - sea surface temperature-
Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Climatology, Sub-daily, Monthly, Pentad
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Boundary Conditions
Experts contributing reviews
- None
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 multi-spectral remote sensing to produce a seamless record on a hemispheric scale. The data are…
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Timestep
- Monthly, Weekly
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- Climate Data Record, Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, landdiagnostics
Experts contributing reviews
- Estilow, Thomas W. | Robinson, David
Years of record
Data assimilation is the process of combining observations from a wide variety of sources and forecast output from a weather prediction model. The resulting analysis is considered to be the 'best' estimate of the state of the atmosphere at a particular instant in time. The…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere-
Formats
-
Timestep
-
Domain
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
The Group for High-Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (SST; GHRSST) provides a new generation of global high-resolution (10km) SST products to the operational oceanographic, meteorological, climate and general scientific community. The products are provided at a variety of…
Experts contributing reviews
- None
Years of record
- to
The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) Version 2.0 Surface Flux and Meteorological Dataset is a monthly mean gridded dataset of marine surface measurements and derived fluxes constructed using optimal interpolation. Input for the period 1973 to 2006 are ICOADS…
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Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Monthly
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- Kent, Elizabeth
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 cycle and land-atmosphere interaction. As such, it can be considered a second generation reanalysis.…
Main variables and Earth System components
Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Land-
Formats
- GRIB
-
Timestep
- Climatology, Sub-daily, Monthly
-
Domain
- North America
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- None
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. Specifically, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperature and…
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Formats
-
Timestep
- Daily
-
Domain
- Global
-
Collections
- None
Experts contributing reviews
- Lakshmi, Venkataraman | Fang, Bin
Years of record
- to
The NOAA/NSIDC Climate Data Record (CDR) of sea ice concentration is available at 25 x 25 km spatial resolution in daily or monthly timesteps for 1987-2014. It provides a consistent interpretation of sea ice for the satellite record, with the intent of being suitable for…
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Formats
- netCDF
-
Timestep
- Daily, Monthly
-
Collections
- Climate Data Record
Experts contributing reviews
- Meier, Walter
Years of record
- to
High resolution (0.25°) SSTs were derived from the AMSR-E, a passive microwave radiometer flying on NASA's AQUA satellite. Remote Sensing Systems distributes the data in high spatial and temporal (daily, weekly, monthly) resolutions for both daytime and nighttime averages…
Experts contributing reviews
- None