GHCN Gridded Land Precipitation (V2) and Temperature Anomalies (V3)

Brief Description:

  • GHCN V2 contains gridded precipitation anomalies calculated from the GHCN version 2 monthly precipitation data set. 2,064 homogeneity adjusted precipitation stations were combined with a data set containing 20,590 raw precipitation stations throughout the world onto a 72x36 (5degx5deg) global grid.

Temporal Coverage:

  • Monthly anomalies from 1900 to May 2015 (precipitation)
  • Monthly anomalies from 1880 to Jul 2016 (temperature)
  • Monthly means from 1900 to May 2015 (precipitation only).

Spatial Coverage:

  • 5.0 degree latitude x 5.0 degree longitude global grid (36x72).
  • 87.5S - 87.5N, 2.5E - 357.5E.

Levels:

  • Surface

Update Schedule:

  • Monthly

Download/Plot Data:

Archive parameters: File names are composed of variable abbreviations and statistic name:

(variable).(time).(statistic).nc

Variable Statistic Level Download File Create Plot/Subset
Precipitation Anomaly Surface precip.mon.anom.nc plot
Precipitation Total Surface precip.mon.total.nc plot
Temperature Anomaly Surface air.mon.anom.nc plot

Usage Restrictions:

  • None.

Detailed Description:

  • See the NCDC's GHCN gridded webpage for more details. The temperature data set contains gridded mean temperature anomalies from the Global Historical Climatology Network-Monthly (GHCN-M) version 3.2.1 temperature data set. The gridded anomalies were produced from GHCN-M bias corrected data. Each month of data consists of 2,592 gridded data points produced on a 5� by 5� basis for the entire globe (72 longitude by 36 latitude grid boxes).Note that beginning with the August 2012 Global monthly State of the Climate Report, released on September 17, 2012, GHCN-M version 3.2.0 is used for NCDC climate monitoring activities, including calculation of global land surface temperature anomalies and trends.

    The precipitation data set contains gridded precipitation anomalies calculated from the GHCN version 2 monthly precipitation data set. 2,064 homogeneity adjusted precipitation stations (from the U.S., Canada, and Former Soviet Union) were combined with a data set containing 20,590 raw precipitation stations throughout the world to create these gridded fields. Grid boxes with no homogeneity adjusted data, GHCN raw data was used to provide the greatest possible global coverage.

    The precipitation anomalies use 1971-2000 as the base climatology period and temperature uses 1981-2010.

    The precipitation totals are created by adding the values from the file grid.prcp.DMean to the anomalies.

  • Related Datasets at PSD

Caveats:

  • According to NCDC "We developed this gridded data set to produce the most accurate time series possible. However, this required that we treat months and grid boxes independently through time. The use of this data is most appropriate for analyzing the change in precipitation within a particular grid box, or set of grid boxes, over a span of years."
  • Precipitation totals can be negative due to how they were constructed (anomales added to a climatology to form the mean).

Related File Naming & Structure Information:

File Names:

  • var.time.stat.nc   (In directory: /Datasets/ghcngridded/)

Dataset Format and Size:

  • PSD standard NetCDF: ~15 Mbyte file size (3 files)

Missing Data:

  • -9.96921e+36f.

Citation:

  • Please note: If you acquire GHCN Gridded V2 data products from PSD, we ask that you acknowledge us in your use of the data. This may be done by including text such as GHCN Gridded V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA, from their Web site at http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/ in any documents or publications using these data. We would also appreciate receiving a copy of the relevant publications. This will help PSD to justify keeping the GHCN Gridded V2 data set freely available online in the future. Thank you!
  • Please cite NCDC

References:

  • Jones, P. D., and A. Moberg, 2003: Hemispheric and Largescale Surface Air Temperature Variations: An extensive Revision and an Update to 2001, J. Climate, 16, 206-223.
  • Peterson, Thomas C. and Russell S. Vose, 1997: An Overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network Temperature Data Base, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 78, 2837-2849.

Original Source:

Contact:

  • Physical Sciences Division: Data Management
    NOAA/ESRL/PSD
    325 Broadway
    Boulder, CO 80305-3328
    esrl.psd.data@noaa.gov