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

  • Years of record

  • N/A

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

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • N/A

    • Domain

    • N/A

    • Collections

    • N/A
Soil Moisture Data Sets: Overview & Comparison Tables Soil Moisture Data Sets: Overview & Comparison Tables

  • Years of record

  • N/A

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
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
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

  • Years of record

  • to

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
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

  • Years of record

  • to

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

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • Daily

    • Collections

    • N/A
Landscape surface freeze/thaw status based on passive microwave remote sensing Landscape surface freeze/thaw status based on passive microwave remote sensing

  • Years of record

  • to

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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Freeze/Thaw
Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)

  • Years of record

  • N/A

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
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)

  • Years of record

  • to

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

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • Daily

    • Collections

    • N/A
Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI)

  • Years of record

  • to

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

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • Monthly

    • Domain

    • N/A

    • Collections

    • N/A
maps of SIF and GPP (contributed by Jingfeng Xiao and Xing Li) Global dataset of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (GOSIF)

  • Years of record

  • to

GOSIF is a global, gridded dataset of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF). SIF, an energy flux re-emitted by plants a few nanoseconds after light absorption,…

Main variables and Earth System components

Biosphere GPP: Gross Primary Production solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) Land Gross Primary Production

    • Formats

    • N/A

    • Timestep

    • Monthly, Weekly

    • Collections

    • N/A
LANDSAT LANDSAT

  • Years of record

  • to

"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…

Main variables and Earth System components

Biosphere NPP: Net Primary Production Land Land Cover Type Vegetation Cover

  • Experts contributing reviews

  • N/A
Historical land-cover changes and land-use conversions global data set by Meiyappan and Jain Historical land-cover changes and land-use conversions global data set by Meiyappan and Jain

  • Years of record

  • to

A set of three estimates of land-cover types and annual transformations of land use are provided on a global 0.5°x0.5° grid at annual timesteps. The longest of the three…

Main variables and Earth System components

Land Land Cover Type Land Use Conversion Vegetation Cover

    • Timestep

    • Annual

    • Collections

    • N/A