CHOMPS: CICS High-Resolution Optimally Interpolated Microwave Precipitation from Satellites
Years of Record: 1998/01 to 2007/12
CHOMPS utilizes all available passive microwave satellite estimates to develop improved global daily rainfall time series. No IR values are used. Satellite sources include SSM/I, AMSU, AMSR-E and TRMM. The most recent/accurate and consistent retrieval schemes have been used in the creation of the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Global
CMAP: CPC Merged Analysis of Precipitation
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2017/08
CMAP refers to a collection of precipitation data sets, though the 2.5°x2.5° global monthly version is probably the most widely used. This data set is constructed from an analysis of gauge data and satellite-derived precipitation estimates. An "enhanced" version (CMAP/A) is also available, which...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly,Pentad
Domain: Global
CMORPH (CPC MORPHing technique): High resolution precipitation (60S-60N)
Years of Record: 2002/12 to 2017/04
"CMORPH (CPC MORPHing technique) produces global precipitation analyses at very high spatial and temporal resolution. This technique uses precipitation estimates that have been derived from low orbiter satellite microwave observations exclusively, and whose features are transported via spatial...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily
Domain: Global
COREv2 Air-Sea Surface Fluxes
Years of Record: 1949/01 to 2006/12
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 conditions that has been used...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
CPC Unified Gauge-Based Analysis of Global Daily Precipitation
Years of Record: 1948/01 to 2017/07
A gauge-based analysis of daily precipitation has been constructed over the global land areas. Gauge reports from over 30,000 stations are collected from multiple sources including GTS, COOP, and other national and international agencies. Quality control is performed through comparisons with...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Global
CRU TS Gridded precipitation and other meteorological variables since 1901
Years of Record: 1901/01 to 2015/12
The CRU TS series of data sets (CRU TS = Climatic Research Unit Timeseries) contain monthly timeseries of precipitation, daily maximum and minimum temperatures, cloud cover, and other variables covering Earth's land areas for 1901-2015 (CRU TS4.0 is a recent release). The data set is gridded to 0....
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly
Domain: Global
Daymet: Daily Surface Weather and Climatological Summaries
Years of Record: 1980/01 to 2015/12
Developed by Dr. Peter E Thornton to fulfill the need for daily climatological data necessary for plant growth model inputs, Daymet generates daily, gridded surfaces of temperature, precipitation, humidity, and radiation over large regions and takes into account areas of complex terrain.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Climatology,Daily
Domain: North America
ERA-Interim
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2017/07
Using a much improved atmospheric model and assimilation system from those used in ERA-40, ERA-Interim represents a third generation reanalysis. Several of the inaccuracies exhibited by ERA-40 such as too-strong precipitation over oceans from the early 1990's onwards and a too-strong Brewer-Dobson...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | GRIB
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Global
GHCN-D: Global Historical climatology Network daily temperatures
Years of Record: 1880/01 to 2016/03
The Global Historical Climatology Network Daily database, GHCN-D, contains meteorological measurements from over 90,000 stations across the globe. The majority of station records contain precipitation data only, however other key variables including maximum temperature, minimum temperature,...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Global
Global (land) precipitation and temperature: Willmott & Matsuura, University of Delaware
Years of Record: 1900/01 to 2014/12
A series of gridded temperature and precipitation data sets. Station records that served as bases for the Terrestrial Air Temperature: 1900-2014 Gridded Monthly Time Series (Version 4.01) and Terrestrial Precipitation: 1900-2014 Gridded Monthly Time Series (Version 4.01) archives are used here to...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly
Domain: Global
GPCC: Global Precipitation Climatology Centre
Years of Record: 1900/01 to 2010/12
The GPCC provides gridded gauge-analysis products derived from quality controlled station data. Two products are for climate: (a) the Full Data Reanalysis Product (1901-2010) is recommended for global and regional water balance studies, calibration/validation of remote sensing based rainfall...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly
Domain: Global
GPCP (Daily): Global Precipitation Climatology Project
Years of Record: 1996/10 to 2015/11
The 1DD product provides precipitation estimates on a 1-degree grid over the entire globe at 1-day (daily) for the period October 1996 - present. Both the Pentad and 1DD products are consistent with the Version 2 monthly product in the sense that the Pentad and 1DD approximately sum to the monthly...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Daily
Domain: Global
GPCP (Monthly): Global Precipitation Climatology Project
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2015/11
Data from rain gauge stations, satellites, and sounding observations have been merged to estimate monthly rainfall on a 2.5-degree global grid from 1979 to the present. The careful combination of satellite-based rainfall estimates provides the most complete analysis of rainfall available to date...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Climatology,Monthly
Domain: Global
HOAPS: Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data
Years of Record: 1987/01 to 2008/12
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 variables over the global ice free...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Climatology,Sub-daily,Monthly,Pentad
Domain: Global
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
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
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:
Precipitation Reconstruction Land (PREC/L): 1948-present
Years of Record: 1948/01 to 2017/08
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
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
Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)
Years of Record: 1949/01 to 2012/12
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
TRMM: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
Years of Record: 1998/01 to 2016/10
Note: After 17 years (1997-4/2015) the TRMM mission came to an end. NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) stopped TRMM’s science operations and data collection on April 8, 2015 after the spacecraft depleted its fuel reserves. The Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) is the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | HDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly
Domain: Tropics
Tropical Moored Buoy System: TAO, TRITON, PIRATA, RAMA (TOGA)
Years of Record: 1992/01 to 2013/04
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, long-term monitoring of the...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Sub-daily,Daily,Monthly,Weekly
Domain: Tropics
U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI)
Years of Record: 1910/01 to 2012/12
The CEI was first presented in 1995 as a framework for quantifying observed changes in climate within the contiguous United States. The index is based on an aggregate set of conventional climate extreme indicators which now includes extremes in land- falling tropical storm and hurricane wind...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Monthly,Seasonal,Annual
Domain: North America
