Land

Important land variables include soil moisture, vegetation coverage, surface radiation budgets and 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.

To see only the datasets accompanied by expert commentaries, select the "Datasets with guidance" button when using the search box.

Climate datasets

Has expert guidance
Soil Moisture Data Sets: Overview & Comparison Tables Soil Moisture Data Sets: Overview & Comparison Tables

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Soil moisture is a state variable of the land that crosses the interfaces of several disciplines, including meteorology, hydrology, climatology and ecology. Soil moisture…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Soil Moisture
The monthly averaged downscaled 1 km and 9 km SMAP SM of descending overpass (6 a.m.) from 2020 in Danube River basin. (contributed by Bin Fang and Venkat Lakshmi) SMAP-Derived 1-km Downscaled Surface Soil Moisture

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This data product contains global daily 1 km resolution surface soil moisture (SM) derived from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) L-band radiometer observations.…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Soil Moisture

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    • Daily

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contribution from each of the different evaporation components in GLEAM for 1980-2022 (contributed by A Koppa and D Miralles) Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM)

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The Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model (GLEAM) is a satellite remote sensing-based set of algorithms dedicated to the estimation of evaporation and soil moisture at…

Main variables and Earth System components

Biosphere land evaporation Land evapotranspiration Soil Moisture

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    • Daily

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graph Simulation performance of 19 Earth system models (credit: Justin Makin and Corey Lesk) Making sense of data from Land Surface Models (LSMs)

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The land surface is a dynamic and complex component of the Earth system, shaping climate and biogeochemical cycles and serving as the origin of many anthropogenic impacts on…

Main variables and Earth System components

Biosphere Land

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TerraClimate: Global, high-resolution gridded temperature, precipitation, and other water balance variables TerraClimate: Global, high-resolution gridded temperature, precipitation, and other water balance variables

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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

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    • Climatology, Monthly

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Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)

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The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) uses readily available temperature and precipitation data to estimate relative dryness. It is a standardized index that generally…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Drought
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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GRACE: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment: Surface mass, total water storage, and derived variables GRACE: Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment: Surface mass, total water storage, and derived variables

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The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) refers to a pair of NASA satellites that has flown in low-Earth orbit since 2002. The satellites use a precise microwave…

Main variables and Earth System components

Cryosphere Glaciers Ice Sheet Mass Land Groundwater surface water Water Storage Ocean Bottom pressure
ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis

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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
Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR) Arctic System Reanalysis (ASR)

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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

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    • Sub-daily, Monthly

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  • Experts contributing reviews

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Drought atlases from tree rings Drought atlases from tree rings

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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-…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Drought