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
SeaWIFS: ocean bio-optical and carbon properties
Years of Record: 2002/01 to 2013/08
The purpose of the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) Project is to provide quantitative data on global ocean bio-optical properties and to assess the oceans' role in the global carbon cycle. SeaWiFS data are being used to help clarify the magnitude and variability of chlorophyll and...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: HDF
Timestep: Climatology,Daily,Monthly,Seasonal,Annual
Domain: Global
Collections: Carbon cycle
SEVIRI: Cloud Mask Dataset: Very High Resolution
Years of Record: 2004/01 to 2012/12
The SEVIRI cloud mask dataset has been generated and released by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF) to enhance the cloud property dataset CLAAS. The SEVIRI cloud mask dataset contains the cloud mask in 15 minutes temporal resolution. The dataset is pixel...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | HDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Africa, Atlantic Ocean, Europe
Collections: Climate Data Record
Simplistic Overview of Reanalysis Data Assimilation Methods
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 process of combining the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Snow Water Equivalent (AMSR-E)
Years of Record: 2002/06 to 2011/10
The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) distributes daily, weekly, and monthly products which includes snow water equivalent. Note: "On 04 October 2011, the AMSR-E instrument on board the Aqua satellite stopped producing data due to a problem with the rotation of...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: HDF-EOS
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Weekly
Domain: NH - Northern Hemisphere
SOCAT: Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas
Years of Record: 1970/01 to 2007/12
SOCAT (Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas) represents an effort to "provide a comprehensive, publicly available, regularly updated, global data set of marine surface CO2, which had been subject to quality control (QC)." The data sets are comprised of observations (ship track) and gridded data.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly,Annual
Domain: Global
Collections: Carbon cycle
SODA: Simple Ocean Data Assimilation
Years of Record: 1870/01 to 2010/12
The Simple Ocean Data Assimilation, or SODA, analysis is an ocean reanalysis data set consisting of gridded variables for the global ocean, as well as several derived fields. The goal is to provide an improved estimate of ocean state from those based solely on observations or numerical simulations.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Soil Moisture Data Sets: Overview & Comparison Tables
Soil moisture is a state variable of the land that crosses the interfaces of several disciplines, including meteorology, hydrology, climatology and ecology. Soil moisture content controls the partitioning of net radiation at the land surface between sensible and latent heat fluxes. This occurs...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Southern Ocean State Estimate (SOSE)
Years of Record: 2005/01 to 2010/12
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 a gridded dataset at 1/6...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Weekly,Annual
Domain: Antarctic, SH - Southern Hemisphere, Southern Ocean
SSM/I, SSMIS: Special Sensor Microwave/Imager and Sounder
Years of Record: 1987/07 to 2015/06
The SSM/I and SSMIS satellites are operated by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and are part of NASA's Pathfinder Program. The instrumentation has been flown on a number of satellites: F-8 (1987), F-10 (November 1990), F-11 (December 1991), F-12 (August 1994), F-13 (March 1995),...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Weekly
Domain: Global
SSMI Version 7: Ocean Product Suite
The Ocean Product Suite (v7) from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) is available in netCDF (v4) format. The RSS Ocean Product Suite includes numerous data products for the SSMI/SSMIS instruments on the DMSP F08, F10, F11, F13, F14, F15, F17 polar orbiting satellites. These are part of the NASA Making...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
SST Data Sets: Overview & Comparison Table
Years of Record: 1850/01 to 2014/04
Sea surface temperature (SST) data sets are an essential resource for monitoring and understanding climate variability and climate change. By surface area, SSTs are the dominant (~71%) input into merged global land-ocean surface temperature data products. Historically, SST measurments...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Timestep: Climatology,Daily,Monthly,Weekly
Domain: Global
Collections: Overview / Comparison page
SST (AMSR-E): Sea Surface Temperature from Remote Sensing Systems
Years of Record: 2002/06 to 2010/12
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. Monthly versions are...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Daily,Monthly,Weekly
Domain: Global
Collections: Obs4MIPS
SST data: AVHRR Pathfinder v5.2, NOAA NODC
Years of Record: 1981/01 to 2011/12
"The AVHRR Pathfinder Version 5.2 (PFV52) data set was computed using an entirely modernized system, based on SeaDAS and incorporating several key changes over the older Pathfinder V5.0 and V5.1 datasets. PFV52 is viewed as a significant step forward in preparation for the future Version 6 (PFV6)...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Sub-daily
Domain: Global
SST data: HadSST3
Years of Record: 1850/01 to 2017/12
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 ICOADS release 2.5. Bias...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets, NCAR-DOE-CESM, climatevariabilitydiagnostics(CVDP)
SST data: HadSST4
Years of Record: 1849/12 to 2018/11
HadSST4 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. This means that uncertainties due to limited spatial...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets
SST Data: NOAA Extended Reconstruction SSTs Version 5 (ERSSTv5)
Years of Record: 1854/01 to 2019/08
The NOAA Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST) provides global, spatially complete SST data at a monthly timestep for 1854-present. Version5 is based upon statistical interpolation of the ICOADS release 3.0 data. Argo float data are used in the recent years (since ~2000). The data...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Diagnostic Data Sets
SST data: NOAA Extended Reconstruction SSTs, Version 4
Years of Record: 1981/10 to 2019/03
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 control, bias adjustment, and...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI)
Years of Record: 1901/01 to 2014/03
The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) is an extension of the widely used Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI). The SPEI is designed to take into account both precipitation and potential evapotranspiration (PET) in determining drought. Thus, unlike the SPI, the SPEI...
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly,Seasonal,Annual
Domain: Global
Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
Years of Record: 1949/01 to 2018/07
The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is a widely used index to characterize meteorological drought on a range of timescales. On short timescales, the SPI is closely related to soil moisture, while at longer timescales, the SPI can be related to groundwater and reservoir storage. The SPI can...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Timestep: Monthly
Stratospheric Ozone: Randel & Wu 2007
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2005/12
This is a monthly, zonal-mean ozone profile data set spanning 1979–2005 for altitudes from the tropopause up to 50 km. Interannual variability is based on a combination of SAGE (Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment) satellite profile measurements and polar ozonesondes. The interannual...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Collections: Boundary Conditions
Stratospheric Ozone: Vertically Resolved, zonal mean based on BDBP
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2007/12
Combined monthly mean vertical ozone profile database spanning the period 1979 to 2007. The database is completely filled such that there are no missing data. The raw individual ozone data are sourced from the BDBP database. Monthly means are calculated from individual ozone measurements...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global