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:
Merged Hadley-NOAA/OI Sea Surface Temperature & Sea-Ice Concentration (Hurrell et al, 2008)
Years of Record: 1870/01 to 2016/03
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
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...
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
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: 1979/01 to 2016/02
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
NCAR Sea Level Pressure
Years of Record: 1899/01 to 2019/10
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
NCEP NARR
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2019/12
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 2019/12
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 2019/12
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: 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: 1870/01 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
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 ThreadEx Long-term Station Extremes for America
Years of Record: 1870/01 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
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
Ocean Productivity: Phytoplankton size estimates (satellite)
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
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
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...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii | binary
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
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
QBO: Quasi-Biennial Oscillation
Years of Record: 1953/01 to 2012/09
The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is a quasi-periodic oscillation of the equatorial zonal wind between easterlies and westerlies in the tropical stratosphere with a mean period of 28 to 29 months. The alternating wind regimes develop at the top of the lower stratosphere and propagate downwards...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Tropics
QuikSCAT: near sea-surface wind speed and direction
Years of Record: 1999/08 to 2009/10
The QuikSCAT mission was intended to obtain sea-surface wind speed and direction data under all weather and cloud conditions over Earth's oceans. SeaWinds, an active radar scatterometer, is the main instrument on the QuikSCAT satellite. The microwave backscatter measured by SeaWinds is dependent on...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Weekly
Domain: Global
Collections: Obs4MIPS
Radiative kernels from climate models
The radiative kernel technique is a method used to quantify radiative feedbacks in response to global warming. Radiative kernels are commonly calculated for the water vapor, lapse rate, temperature and albedo feedbacks. Radiative kernels are used to deconstruct the various contributions...
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Climatology
Domain: Global
Randolph Glacier Inventory data base of global glacier outlines
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. The data are organized into 19 large regions, with a shapefile provided for each region. The RGI is produced as part of the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: shapefile
Timestep: Climatology
Domain: Global
SCRIPPS O2 ,CO2 and APO
Years of Record: 1989/01 to 2012/12
"The Scripps O2Program measures changes in atmospheric oxygen levels from air samples collected at stations around the world. This sampling network provides a global and hemispheric perspective on oxygen variability. " Stations include:
Alert, NWT, Canada
Cold Bay, Alaska
Cape Kumukahi, Hawaii...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Daily,Monthly
Collections: Carbon cycle
