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
Precipitation Data Sets: Overview & Comparison table Precipitation Data Sets: Overview & Comparison table

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Precipitation (rain, snow, hail, ...) is one of the key components of the hydrological cycle. Its societal importance cannot be over stated. For climate research,…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation

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Overview: Climate Indices Overview: Climate Indices

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Ocean

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timeseries of signal and noise in the SOI Southern Oscillation Indices: Signal, Noise and Tahiti/Darwin SLP (SOI)

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The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) is a time series used to characterize the large scale sea level pressure (SLP) patterns in the tropical Pacific. Monthly mean SLP at…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Sea Level Pressure
NAO DJFM Station-based Index Hurrell North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index (station-based)

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The winter (December thru March) station-based index of the NAO is based on the difference of normalized sea level pressure (SLP) between Lisbon, Portugal and…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Sea Level Pressure
Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation Land Drought

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    • Monthly

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GPCP (Monthly): Global Precipitation Climatology Project GPCP (Monthly): Global Precipitation Climatology Project

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation
NAM Spatial Pattern (DJFM) Hurrell wintertime SLP-based Northern Annular Mode (NAM) Index

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The NAM (or Arctic Oscillation) is defined as the first EOF of NH (20°-90°N) winter SLP data. It explains 23% of the extended winter mean (December-March) variance, and it…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Sea Level Pressure
Overview: Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Data Sets Overview: Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Data Sets

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere CO2 Biosphere

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NP Index North Pacific (NP) Index by Trenberth and Hurrell; monthly and winter

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The North Pacific Index (NP index or NPI) is the area-weighted sea level pressure over the region 30°N-65°N, 160°E-140°W. The NP index is defined to measure interannual to…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Sea Level Pressure
GPCC: Global Precipitation Climatology Centre GPCC: Global Precipitation Climatology Centre

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The GPCC provides gridded gauge-analysis products derived from quality controlled station data. Two products are for climate: (a) the Full Data Reanalysis Product  (…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation

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TRMM: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission TRMM: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission

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The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is a joint space mission between NASA and Japan's National Space Development Agency designed to monitor and study tropical and…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation
CMAP: CPC Merged Analysis of Precipitation CMAP: CPC Merged Analysis of Precipitation

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation
U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI) U.S. Climate Extremes Index (CEI)

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation Wind Land Drought
COSP: Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) Observation Simulator Package COSP: Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) Observation Simulator Package

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Cloud processes and feedbacks are recognized as the largest uncertainty in climate model projections of climate change. Progress in understanding the roles of clouds in…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Cloud Properties
Global (land) precipitation and temperature: Willmott & Matsuura, University of Delaware Global (land) precipitation and temperature: Willmott & Matsuura, University of Delaware

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Air Temperature at 2m Precipitation
Extended Edited Synoptic Cloud Reports Archive (EECRA) from Ships and Land Stations Over the Globe Extended Edited Synoptic Cloud Reports Archive (EECRA) from Ships and Land Stations Over the Globe

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"The Extended Edited Synoptic Cloud Reports Archive makes use of routine synoptic observations made by humans on ships over the ocean and at weather stations over land.…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Cloud Properties

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    • Sub-daily

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Gridded Climatology of Clouds from Surface Observations Worldwide (1971-2008) Gridded Climatology of Clouds from Surface Observations Worldwide (1971-2008)

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This digital archive provides multi-year monthly, seasonal, and annual averages in 5x5-degree grid boxes (or 10x10-degree boxes for some quantities over the ocean). Daytime…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Cloud Properties
COREv2 Air-Sea Surface Fluxes COREv2 Air-Sea Surface Fluxes

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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-…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Evaporation Precipitation Radiation Wind Stress Land Runoff and Streamflow Ocean Surface Flux
PC-based DJFM NAO Index 1899-2024 Hurrell North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index (PC-based)

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The principal component (PC)-based indices of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are the time series of the leading Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) of SLP anomalies…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Sea Level Pressure
HOAPS: Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data HOAPS: Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data

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The Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data (HOAPS) set is a satellite-based climatology of precipitation, evaporation and freshwater budget (…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Evaporation Evaporation-Precipitation Precipitation Radiation Specific Humidity Wind Latent & sensible heat flux Precipitable water Ocean SST - sea surface temperature

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IBTrACS: Tropical cyclone best track data IBTrACS: Tropical cyclone best track data

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IBTrACS (International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship) provides global tropical cyclone best track data in a centralized location to aid our understanding of the…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Storm data
MSU/AMSU Atmospheric Temperature Climate Data Record, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) MSU/AMSU Atmospheric Temperature Climate Data Record, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS)

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A long (30-year+) data set of atmospheric temperatures for 4 tropopsheric and lower stratopsheric layers has been derived from brightness temperatures measured by the…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature
Budgets: Mass, Moisture, Energy Budgets: Mass, Moisture, Energy

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The uneven distribution of incoming and outgoing radiation is the primary driver of the climate system. The resulting flows of energy by the climate components (atmosphere,…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Budget Evaporation Evaporation-Precipitation Radiation

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ERA-Interim: derived components ERA-Interim: derived components

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Era-Interim data are used to derive monthly mass, moisture and energy budget products. Each term is available. Atmospheric energy, mass, and moisture budgets can be computed…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Budget Evaporation-Precipitation

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) Example of CloudSat and CALIPSO cloud mask along a single orbit. (contributed by Leah Bertrand) Combined CloudSat spaceborne radar and CALIPSO spaceborne lidar cloud fraction dataset (3S-GEOPROF-COMB)

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A global (82S-82N) cloud fraction data set, providing a unique view of cloud vertical structure, has been developed based on the complimentary spaceborne remote sensing…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Cloud Properties
NOAA ThreadEx Long-term Station Extremes for America NOAA ThreadEx Long-term Station Extremes for America

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation

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QBO: Quasi-Biennial Oscillation QBO: Quasi-Biennial Oscillation

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Wind

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    • Monthly

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WASWind: Wave and Anemometer-based Sea Surface Wind WASWind: Wave and Anemometer-based Sea Surface Wind

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"WASWind (Wave and Anemometer-based Sea Surface Wind) provides a bias-corrected marine surface wind dataset over the global oceans. Variables include scalar, zonal and…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Wind Wind Stress

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    • Monthly

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PRISM High-Resolution Spatial Climate Data for the United States: Max/min temp, dewpoint, precipitation PRISM High-Resolution Spatial Climate Data for the United States: Max/min temp, dewpoint, precipitation

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PRISM is a set of monthly, yearly, and single-event gridded data products of mean temperature and precipitation, max/min temperatures, and dewpoints, primarily for the…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Dew Point Temperature Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature Precipitation
GPCP (Daily): Global Precipitation Climatology Project GPCP (Daily): Global Precipitation Climatology Project

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation
CMORPH (CPC MORPHing technique): High resolution precipitation (60S-60N) CMORPH (CPC MORPHing technique): High resolution precipitation (60S-60N)

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"CMORPH (CPC MORPHing technique) produces global precipitation analyses at very high spatial and temporal resolution. This technique uses precipitation estimates that have…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation

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PERSIANN-CDR: Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks - Climate Data Record PERSIANN-CDR: Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks - Climate Data Record

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The Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks- Climate Data Record (PERSIANN-CDR) provides daily rainfall estimates at a…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation
CPC Unified Gauge-Based Analysis of Global Daily Precipitation CPC Unified Gauge-Based Analysis of Global Daily Precipitation

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Precipitation

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    • Daily

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Japanese Ocean Flux Data sets with Use of Remote Sensing Observations (J-OFURO2) Japanese Ocean Flux Data sets with Use of Remote Sensing Observations (J-OFURO2)

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These ocean surface flux data sets are derived primarily using data from multiple satellites. The COARE 3.0 bulk algorithm [Fairall et al. (2003)] is used in J-OFURO2 for…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Specific Humidity Wind Stress Latent & sensible heat flux Ocean Surface Flux

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OAFlux: Objectively Analyzed air-sea Fluxes for the global oceans. OAFlux: Objectively Analyzed air-sea Fluxes for the global oceans.

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"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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Latent & sensible heat flux Radiation Wind Ocean SST - sea surface temperature Surface Flux wind stress curl

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    • Daily, Monthly

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

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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
CloudSat CloudSat

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CloudSat is a satellite mission designed to measure the vertical structure of clouds from space. The radar data produces detailed images of cloud structures. CloudSat is…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Cloud Properties

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    • Monthly

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CALIPSO CALIPSO

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CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations ) was launched on April 28, 2006 to study the impact of clouds and aerosols on the Earth's…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Aerosols Cloud Properties

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    • Sub-daily, Daily

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AIRS and AMSU: Tropospheric air temperature and specific humidity AIRS and AMSU: Tropospheric air temperature and specific humidity

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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
Cloud observations from MODIS Cloud observations from MODIS

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The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is scanning instrument that makes measurements in 36 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared at…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Cloud Properties
Stratospheric Ozone: Randel & Wu 2007 Stratospheric Ozone: Randel & Wu 2007

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Ozone: Stratospheric
Stratospheric & Tropospheric Ozone: ACC/SPARC (Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate / Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate) Stratospheric & Tropospheric Ozone: ACC/SPARC (Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate / Stratospheric Processes and their Role in Climate)

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"The AC&C/SPARC ozone database covers the period 1850 to 2100 and can be used as forcing in climate models that do not include interactive chemistry. The historical part…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Ozone: Stratospheric

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Stratospheric Ozone: Vertically Resolved, zonal mean based on BDBP Stratospheric Ozone: Vertically Resolved, zonal mean based on BDBP

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Ozone: Stratospheric

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    • Monthly

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Total Column Ozone: Bodeker Scientific Total Column Ozone: Bodeker Scientific

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Bodeker Scientific produces global, daily, total column ozone database by combining measurements from a number of different satellite-based instruments. Offsets and drifts…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Ozone: Total Column Ozone: Stratospheric

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HadGHCNDEX - Gridded Daily Temperature Extremes HadGHCNDEX - Gridded Daily Temperature Extremes

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HadGHCND (aka HadGHCNDEX) is a gridded daily dataset of near-surface maximum (TX) and minimum (TN) temperature observations. Anomalies (departures from 1961-1990 climatology…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Maximum Air Temperature Minimum Air Temperature

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QuikSCAT: near sea-surface wind speed and direction QuikSCAT: near sea-surface wind speed and direction

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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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Wind
AIRS (Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder): Version 6 Level 2 AIRS (Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder): Version 6 Level 2

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AIRS Version 6 Level 2 data represent a significant improvement over AIRS Version 5 Level 2 products in terms of greater stability, yield, and quality. Several…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Aerosols Air Temperature CO Geopotential Height Ozone: Tropospheric Precipitable water Specific Humidity

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APHRODITE: Asian Precipitation - Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of Water Resources APHRODITE: Asian Precipitation - Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation of Water Resources

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APHRODITE’s (Asian Precipitation - Highly-Resolved Observational Data Integration Towards Evaluation) gridded precipitation is a set of long-term (1951 onward) continental-…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature Precipitation
NLDAS-2 Primary Forcing monthly average 2-m surface temperature for July 1980. NLDAS: North American Land Data Assimilation System

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The North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS) integrates a large quantity of observation-based and model reanalysis data to produce long-term hourly atmospheric…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere Air Temperature CAPE Evaporation Precipitation Radiation Specific Humidity Surface Pressure Wind
AIRS and AMSU: Trace Gases (CO2, CO, CH4, O3...); Level 3 AIRS and AMSU: Trace Gases (CO2, CO, CH4, O3...); Level 3

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AIRS provides satellite retrieval of mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide even under cloudy conditions, without the use of a priori information from models. AIRS retrievals use…

Main variables and Earth System components

Atmosphere CO Ozone: Tropospheric Biosphere CH4-Methane CO CO2

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