Climate Analysis Branch
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In order to help ensure that this web analysis page remains available, we would greatly appreciate feedback on its use, particularily in the clasroom, for presentations or for research. Mail to Cathy Smith at (cathy.smith@noaa.gov).

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Background Information
Related Plot/Analysis
 

How to Reference Datasets

You can use the plots produced from this page in publications. We ask that you acknowledge the Physical Science Division in the publication. For example,

"Image provided by the NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division, Boulder Colorado from their Web site at http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/".

You should also reference the datasets directly:

 

NCEP Reanalysis

You should also reference the NCEP BAMS article for the NCEP Reanalysis data:

Kalnay, E. and Coauthors, 1996: The NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis 40-year Project. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 77, 437-471.
Interpolated OLR
For the interpolated OLR data, we request that you reference the article:
Liebmann, Brant, and Catherine A. Smith, 1996: Description of a Complete (Interpolated) Outgoing Longwave Radiation Dataset. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 77, 1275-1277.
You can find information on the OLR dataset here. Note that the monthly mean climatology for this dataset is based on 1979-1995.
MSU Precipitation
For the MSU data, we request that you reference the article
Spencer, R.W., 1993: Global oceanic precipitation from the MSU during 1979-91 and comparisons to other climatologies. J. Climate, 6, 1301-1326.
MSU is defined only over ocean. Sea ice in high latitudes yields "bad" precipitation values. Try setting a range if you run into this. Note that the monthly mean climatology for this dataset is based on 1979-1995.
U of Delaware Temperature and Precipitation
You can find out about this dataset here. See the webpage http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/README.ghcn_clim.html for the reference. Basically, the dataset is comprised of gridded observations.
CMAP Precipitation
Information is available for the Arkin-Xie dataset.

For the Arkin-Xie dataset, we request that you reference

Xie and Arkin, 1996: Analyses of Global Monthly Precipitation Using Gauge Observations, Satellite Estimates, and Numerical Model Predictions. J. Climate, 9, 840 -858.
Dataset merges gauge and the 5 kinds of satellite estimates (not NCEP Reanalysis values). Note that the monthly mean climatology for this dataset is based on 1979-1995.
PDSI
For the PDSI, information can be found here.