Atmosphere

Atmospheric variables include temperature, precipitation, wind, pressure, clouds, greenhouse gases, and much more. Overview pages summarize and compare selected datasets of a given variable.

To find a specific dataset or variable, jump to the search box below or click your desired variable from among the blue sub-category buttons. Note that the classification of datasets by variable is approximate, especially for large, multi-variable datasets like reanalyses.

To see only the datasets accompanied by in-depth commentary, select the "Datasets with guidance" button when using the search box.

Climate datasets

Has expert guidance
map of Tmin over eastern US (credit: Michele Thornton) Daymet: Daily Surface Weather and Climatological Summaries

  • Years of record

  • to

Daymet provides long-term, continuous, gridded estimates of daily weather and climatology variables by interpolating and extrapolating ground-based observations through…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Radiation Water Vapor Cryosphere Snow Water Equivalent
TerraClimate: Global, high-resolution gridded temperature, precipitation, and other water balance variables TerraClimate: Global, high-resolution gridded temperature, precipitation, and other water balance variables

  • Years of record

  • to

TerraClimate is a global gridded dataset of meteorological and water balance variables for 1958-present, available on a monthly timestep. Its relatively fine spatial…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Potential Evapotranspiration Precipitation Wind Snow Water Equivalent Land evapotranspiration Runoff and Streamflow Soil Moisture

    • Timestep

    • Climatology, Monthly

    • Collections

    • N/A
CRU TS Gridded precipitation and other meteorological variables since 1901 CRU TS Gridded precipitation and other meteorological variables since 1901

  • Years of record

  • to

The CRU TS series of data sets (CRU TS = Climatic Research Unit Time series) contain gridded monthly fields of precipitation, daily maximum and minimum temperatures, cloud…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Cloud Properties Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Potential Evapotranspiration Precipitation

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis

  • Years of record

  • to

ERA5, the successor to ERA-Interim, provides global, hourly estimates of atmospheric, ocean-wave and land-surface variables, at a horizontal resolution of 31 km and 137…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Land Ocean wave height
FWI p95 in ERAI and CESM1-LE (contributed by Danielle Touma) Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI)

  • Years of record

  • N/A

Fire weather indices are used to quantify the meteorological conditions that can lead to fire ignition and spread. They are used to communicate fire danger levels to…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • N/A

    • Domain

    • N/A

    • Collections

    • N/A
ERA-20C: ECMWF's atmospheric reanalysis of the 20th century (and comparisons with NOAA's 20CR) ERA-20C: ECMWF's atmospheric reanalysis of the 20th century (and comparisons with NOAA's 20CR)

  • Years of record

  • to

The ECMWF's first atmospheric reanalysis of the 20th Century, ERA-20C, provides a long, gridded dataset of many climate variables, spanning 1900-2010.  Observations…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Multiple variables
ICOADS Surface Marine Weather Observations ICOADS Surface Marine Weather Observations

  • Years of record

  • N/A

ICOADS (International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set) is the most comprehensive archive of global marine surface climate observations available. Variables include…

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 temperature
JRA-55 JRA-55

  • Years of record

  • to

Spanning 1958-present, JRA-55 is the longest third-generation reanalysis that uses the full observing system (in contrast, products like ERA-20C and NOAA 20CR assimilate a…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water

    • Timestep

    • Sub-daily, Monthly

    • Collections

    • N/A
A team on a boat coring lakes in the Arctic (credit: Laura Larocca) An overview of paleoclimate information from high-resolution lake sediment records: Strengths, limitations and key databases

  • Years of record

  • N/A

Accumulated sediments at the bottom of lakes are invaluable archives of past climate and environmental change. These sediments contain a variety of physical, geochemical,…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Precipitation Biosphere Pollen Land
CERA-20C: ECMWF's Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Reanalysis of the 20th Century CERA-20C: ECMWF's Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Reanalysis of the 20th Century

  • 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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Multiple variables Cryosphere Sea Ice Concentration Ocean

    • Timestep

    • Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly

    • Collections

    • N/A
Livneh gridded precipitation and other meteorological variables for continental US, Mexico and southern Canada Livneh gridded precipitation and other meteorological variables for continental US, Mexico and southern Canada

  • Years of record

  • to

The Livneh et al. (2015) hydrometeorological dataset consists of gridded daily and monthly precipitation, maximum and minimum air temperature, and wind speed for the…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Wind
NASA's MERRA2 reanalysis NASA's MERRA2 reanalysis

  • Years of record

  • to

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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Aerosols Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water

    • Timestep

    • Sub-daily, Daily, Monthly

    • Collections

    • N/A
Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR) Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR)

  • 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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Cryosphere Land Soil Moisture

    • Timestep

    • Sub-daily, Monthly

    • Collections

    • N/A

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Surface Flux and Meteorological Dataset: National Oceanography Centre (NOC) V2.0 Surface Flux and Meteorological Dataset: National Oceanography Centre (NOC) V2.0

  • 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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Cloud Properties Evaporation Latent & sensible heat flux Multiple variables Radiation Sea Level Pressure Specific Humidity Surface Pressure Surface solar radiation Water Vapor Wind Ocean SST - sea surface temperature Surface Flux
ERA-Interim ERA-Interim

  • Years of record

  • to

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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Geopotential Height Precipitable water Precipitation
Figure 2: Map of the locations for all available IGRA v2.2 stations. Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA)

  • Years of record

  • to

The largest publicly available collection of quality-controlled, globally-distributed, historical radiosonde and pilot balloon observations is the Integrated Global…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Dew Point Temperature Geopotential Height Multiple variables Relative Humidity Wind

    • Timestep

    • Sub-daily

    • Collections

    • N/A
AIRS and AMSU: Tropospheric air temperature and specific humidity AIRS and AMSU: Tropospheric air temperature and specific humidity

  • 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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Specific Humidity
GPPM logo decal, from NASA, https://gpm.nasa.gov/resources/images/gpm-decal IMERG precipitation algorithm and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission

  • Years of record

  • to

IMERG (Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for the Global Precipitation Measurement) is NASA's updated precipitation algorithm, while the Global Precipitation Measurement…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation