ISLSCP Initiative II | Related Pages |
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ISLSCP Initiative II Home General Data Overview Near-Surface Met Data Overview |
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ISLSCP Initiative II |
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Near-Surface Meteorology Data
This climatology was constructed from a new data-set of station 1961-1990 climatological normals, numbering between 19,800 (precipitation) and 3615 (windspeed; see New et al, 1999 for details). The station data were interpolated as a function of latitude, longitude and elevation using thin-plate splines. The accuracy of the interpolations were assessed using cross-validation and by comparison with other climatologies. The climatology represents an advance over earlier published global terrestrial climatologies in that it is strictly constrained to the period 1961-1990, describes an extended suite of surface climate variables, explicitly incorporates elevation as a predictor variable and contains an evaluation of regional errors associated with this and other commonly used climatologies. The climatology has been used by researchers in the areas of ecosystem modelling, climate model evaluation and climate change impact assessment.
This data set is related to the CRU Monthly Climate data.
Data Provider: Mark New, Phil Jones, Mike Hulme
 Data Files (ISLSCP II Disc #1) |
 Data Set Documentation |
 Image Viewing Tutorial |
The files have been compressed using the PKZip program. Each uncompressed file contains space-delimited ASCII text with 720 values per line and 360 lines of data (0.5 degree resolution). Each line is terminated by a newline character. The data are structured so that the upperleft corner of the first pixel is located at 90 North latitude and 180 West longitude. Each pixel represents a 0.5 by 0.5 degree area. These files are labeled with "_hd_".
There are also ASCII map files at 1x1 degre resolution, with 360 values per line and 180 lines of data per file. These files are labeled with "_1d_".
| Abbrev. | Variable | Units |
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| cloud_covr | Cloud cover | percent |
| diurnl_tmp | Diurnal temperature range | degrees C |
| frost_frq | Ground-frost frequency | days |
| precip | Precipitation | mm/day |
| radiation | Radiation | W/m2 |
| temp_max | Maximum temperature | degrees C |
| temp_mean | Mean temperature | degrees C |
| temp_min | Minimum temperature | degrees C |
| vapor_pres | Vapour pressure | hPa |
| wetday_frq | Wet day frequency | days |
| wind | Wind | m/sec |
Related Pages:
ISLSCP Initiative II Home
General Data Overview
Near-Surface Met Data Overview
CRU Monthly Mean Data
Revision Date: January 29, 2004