Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR)
Years of Record: 2000/01 to 2012/12
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 (HRLDAS) data assimilation...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF
Timestep: Sub-daily,Monthly
Domain: Arctic
Carbon Emissions from Historical Land-Use and Land-Use Change
Years of Record: 1800/01 to 2012/09
Annual net land-atmosphere carbon flux and net flux of carbon to the atmosphere due to land-use and land-use change (LULUC) are estimated using an integrated assessment model and three historical reconstructions of land use and land use conversion. The data span 1800-2010 and are aggregated for...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Annual
Domain: Global
CERES: IGBP Land Classification
The International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP) defines ecosystems surface classifications. The CERES (Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System)10-minute data can be used to derive the land categories. Other, finer resolution gridded surface data are available.
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | binary
Timestep: Climatology
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
CRU sc-PDSI (self-calibrating PDSI) over Europe & North America
Years of Record: 1901/01 to 2002/12
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°
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Europe, North America
Drought atlases from tree rings
Years of Record: 0000/01 to 2005/12
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 convenient for comparisons...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Annual
Domain: North America
FLUXNET
"FLUXNET is a global network of micrometeorological flux measurement sites that measure the exchanges of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and energy between the biosphere and atmosphere. At present over 140 sites are operating on a long-term and continuous basis. Vegetation under study includes...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Sub-daily
Domain: Global
FLUXNET: MTE (Multi-Tree Ensemble)
Years of Record: 1982/01 to 2007/12
Global, spatially and temporally explicit estimates of carbon and water fluxes derived from empirical up-scaling eddy covariance measurements would constitute a new and possibly powerful data stream to study the variability of the global terrestrial carbon and water cycle. Jung et al (2009)
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Freshwater Discharge: 1948-2004
Years of Record: 1948/01 to 2004/12
"A dataset of historical monthly streamflow at the farthest downstream stations for the world’s 925 largest ocean-reaching rivers has been created for community use. Compared with previous studies, the new dataset has improved homogeneity and enables more reliable assessments of decadal and long-...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii | binary
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
GHCNDEX: Gridded Temperature and Precipitation Climate Extremes Indices (CLIMDEX data)
Years of Record: 1951/01 to 2014/02
GHCNDEX provides gridded, station-based indices of temperature- and precipitation- related climate extremes. It is intended for climate change detection and attribution studies, climate model evaluation, and operational monitoring of extreme climatic events. Twenty-six indices, including daily...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly
Domain: Global
Global Permafrost Zonation Index Map
This data set contains a global (excluding Antarctica) 1 km map of permafrost zonation. It is an estimate of to what degree permafrost exists in a region nearly everywhere, or only in the most favorable conditions. These local conditions affecting permafrost occurrence will partly exhibit regional...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: binary | KML
Timestep: Climatology
Domain: Global
HadEX2: Gridded Temperature and Precipitation Climate Extremes Indices (CLIMDEX data)
Years of Record: 1901/01 to 2010/12
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, including daily maximum and minimum temperatures, number of frost days,...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly,Annual
Domain: Global
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
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
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
NCEP NARR
Years of Record: 1979/01 to 2020/07
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
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
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
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
Snow Cover Extent (Northern Hemisphere) Climate Data Record, by Rutgers
Years of Record: 1966/10 to 2020/06
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 available at weekly and...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: netCDF | ascii
Timestep: Monthly,Weekly
Domain: North America
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:
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
U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI)
Years of Record: 1910/01 to 2019/11
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 (top/bottom 10% of...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Monthly,Seasonal,Annual
Domain: North America
UNH/GRDC: Estimated River Runoff
Combines observed river discharge information with a climate-driven Water Balance Model in order to develop composite runoff fields that are consistent with observed discharges. This combination preserves the accuracy of discharge measurements as well as the spatial and temporal distribution of...
Main variables and Earth System components:
Formats: ascii
Timestep: Climatology
Domain: Global
