Links to Global Atmospheric Reanalysis Datasets
See also S-RIP DATA ARCHIVE
ERA5 (including ERA5.1 & ERA5 back extension)
| Data Access: | Climate Data Store (CDS) (See also CDS API) || ECMWF || NCAR RDA || CEDA Archive (Search with "ERA5" or "ERA5.1") |
| Period: | Jan. 1940-present [1979-present ("ERA5.1" is a corrected version for 2000-2006), and 1950-1978 ("back extension"; see below for more information)] |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | "ERA5.1": This is a corrected version of ERA5 for the period 2000-2006. Details of the issue in ERA5 and its correction for ERA5.1 can be found in Simmons et al., 2020 |
| Note: | [NEW INFO] Updated version of "ERA5 back extension (*1959* -1978)": The updated version becomes available in June 2022 for the period *1959* to 1978. For the details, see this webpage. For data access, see this webpage. |
| Note: | [OLD INFO] Preliminary version of "ERA5 back extension (1950-1978)": The current (2021) one is a preliminary version (see (1) and (2) for the reason; see also (3)), currently available at CDS separately from the 1979-present one, and will be updated around the end of 2021) |
| Note: | "ERA5T" data, i.e., preliminary data for ERA5 with a 5-day delay from real time, are included in the data set available at Climate Data Store. See this page for more information on ERA5T and the meaning of "preliminary". |
| Note: | Model-level data are available from CDS and CEDA (see above links), but the horizontal grids and the period available may be different between the two. |
| References: | Hersbach et al., 2020 for ERA5 1979-. Simmons et al., 2020 for "ERA5.1" (corrected version for 2000-2006). For 1950-1978 ('back extension'), see Bell et al., 2021, and (1), (2), and (3). |
CERA-20C (ECMWF 10-member ensemble of coupled climate reanalyses of the 20th century, which assimilates only surface pressure and marine wind observations as well as ocean temperature and salinity profiles.)
| Data Access: | ECMWF: 3-hourly (monthly mean etc. also available) |
| Period: | January 1901–December 2010 |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data |
| Note: | General information on CERA-20C is available here |
| References: | See this site for the time being |
ERA-20C (ERA-CLIM pilot reanalysis of the 20th-century using surface observations only)
| Data Access: | ECMWF: 3-hourly (monthly mean etc. also available) || NCAR RDA: 3-hourly |
| Period: | January 1900–December 2010 |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data |
| Note: | See also the "Access ECMWF Public Datasets" website to download data in batch with Python. |
| Note: | General information on ERA-20C is available here |
| References: | Poli et al., 2016 |
ERA-20CM (Model integration with specified conditions, using the same forecast model used for ERA-20C)
| Data Access: | ECMWF: 3-hourly (monthly mean etc. also available) |
| Period: | January 1899–December 2010 |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data |
| Note: | General information on ERA-20CM is available here |
| References: | Hersbach et al., 2015 |
ERA-Interim
| Data Access: | ECMWF: 6-hourly • Monthly || NCAR RDA: 6-hourly • Monthly |
| Period: | January 1979–August 2019 |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data |
| Note: | See also the "Access ECMWF Public Datasets" website to download data in batch with Python. |
| Note: | For ERA-Interim grid, see ERA-Interim Horizontal Coordinate Conventions and Numerical Attributes by David Stepaniak (NCAR/CISL Data Support Section) |
| References: | Dee et al., 2011 |
ERA-40
| Data Access: | ECMWF: 6-hourly • Monthly || NCAR RDA: 6-hourly • Monthly || RISH |
| Period: | September 1957–August 2002 |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data |
| Note: | See also the "Access ECMWF Public Datasets" website to download data in batch with Python. |
| Additional Data: | NCAR ERA-40 Data Listing (includes analysis and forecasts on various grids, as well as tendency terms) |
| References: | Uppala et al., 2005 |
JRA-3Q
| Data Access: | DIAS || Univ. Tsukuba|| NCAR RDA |
| Period: | September 1947–present |
| Format: | GRIB2 (netCDF4 for NCAR RDA) |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data |
| Note: | cdo can be used to convert grib2 to netcdf. see e.g. here. |
| References: | JMA ; Kosaka et al., 2024 |
JRA-55
| Data Access: | JMA || NCAR RDA: 6/3-hourly • Monthly || DIAS || RISH |
| Period: | January 1958–present |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data |
| References: | Kobayashi et al., 2015; Harada et al., 2016 |
JRA-55C (conventional data only)
| Data Access: | NCAR RDA: 6/3-hourly • Monthly || DIAS |
| Period: | November 1972–December 2012 |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data |
| References: | Kobayashi et al., 2014 |
JRA-55AMIP (no observational data assimilated)
| Data Access: | NCAR RDA: 6/3-hourly || DIAS |
| Period: | January 1958–January 2013 |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data |
| References: | Kobayashi et al., 2014 |
JRA-25/JCDAS
| Data Access: | NCAR RDA: 6-hourly • Monthly |
| Period: | January 1979–January 2014 |
| Format: | netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data |
| Note: | JMA terminated distribution of JRA-25/JCDAS at the end of February 2014. The data remain available through NCAR. |
| Note (15 Aug 2017): | It has been found that the profiles in the fcst_phy3m25 files are shifted slightly downward incorrectly. This is due to the use of half-level coefficients (instead of the full-level coefficients) when the conversion from fcst_phy3m to fcst_phy3m25 was made at JMA. All other files such as fcst_phy3m, anl_p, anl_p25, etc. are OK. Contact Masatomo Fujiwara for more information. |
| References: | Onogi et al., 2007 (see also Ebita et al., 2011) |
MERRA-2
| Data Access: | GMAO MERRA-2 |
| Period: | 1980–present |
| Format: | netCDF4 |
| Note: | For MERRA and MERRA-2, there are two types of data product, (1) IAU state (or 'ASM', or 'asm', or 'Assimilation' in the file header/name) and (2) analyzed state (or 'ANA', or 'ana', or 'analysis', or 'DAS'). The explanation of them is found at GMAO's MERRA-2 site (see Supplementary Description of Differences between ANA and ASM Data Collections), and in Rienecker et al. (2011) and Gelaro et al. (2017); see also 3rd paragraph of page 1431 of Fujiwara et al. (2017). Except for very special cases, data users should choose '(1) IAU state' product. |
| Note: | See GMAO's MERRA-2 site for various documents on MERRA-2. |
| Note: | For MERRA-2, each data collection has a DOI number that should be cited (*see the next Note) when the data are used. The DOI numbers are included in the data files and the complete list is summarized in the MERRA-2 File Specification document (see pages 58-61, Table 6.1). |
| *Note: | See, for example, Manney et al. (2017) how to cite MERRA-2 data in the References section of your paper. |
| References: | Gelaro et al., 2017; see also GMAO's MERRA-2 site |
MERRA-2 AMIP (no observational data assimilated)
| Data Access: | NASA |
| Period: | 1980–2017 |
| Format: | netCDF4 |
| Note: | The MERRA-2 AMIP dataset consists of a 10-member ensemble of free-running simulations with the GEOS atmospheric model used in the MERRA-2 reanalysis. There are monthly files for each of the 10 ensemble members and for the ensemble mean and daily (3-hourly for 3-D data and 1-hourly for surface data) for a single member, "m2amip02". |
| Note: | Short description and links can be found GMAO's MERRA-2 AMIP website . File specification information can be found in this pdf . |
MERRA
| Data Access: | GES DISC (multiple products available for subset and download; see product information pages for details) |
| Period: | 1 January 1979 – 29 February 2016 |
| Format: | HDF or netCDF |
| Note: | For MERRA and MERRA-2, there are two types of data product, (1) IAU state (or 'ASM', or 'asm', or 'Assimilation' in the file header/name) and (2) analyzed state (or 'ANA', or 'ana', or 'analysis', or 'DAS'). The explanation of them is found at GMAO's MERRA-2 site (see Supplementary Description of Differences between ANA and ASM Data Collections), and in Rienecker et al. (2011) and Gelaro et al. (2017); see also 3rd paragraph of page 1431 of Fujiwara et al. (2017). Except for very special cases, data users should choose '(1) IAU state' product. It should be noted, however, that MERRA's IAU product is provided at a reduced horizontal resolution and only on pressure levels (not model levels). |
| Note: | Product introduction and tools are available at GMAO's MERRA site (see the left-hand-side region of the page; e.g., Documentation, System Information) |
| Note: | MERRA netCDF files may not contain unit information; see the file specification documents for units and other details |
| References: | Rienecker et al., 2011 |
CFSR (or CFSR/CFSv2 if post-2010 data are included)
| Data Access (1) "CDAS-T382": | NOAA: 6-hourly • Monthly (Jan. 1979-Mar. 2011; see NOAA CFS's site; see also NCAR RDA and notes below) || NCAR RDA: 6-hourly • Monthly (Jan. 1979-Dec. 2010) |
| . | . |
| Data Access (2) "CFSv2" or "CDAS-T574": | NCAR RDA: 6-hourly • Monthly (Jan. 2011 – present) |
| . | . |
| Data Access (3) Model level data: | NOAA ftp site (1979-2015; to be extended) (contact Sean Davis for access information; see Butler et al. (2017 AMS Mid. Atmos. Conf., poster pdf) for overview of this data set.) |
| . | . |
| Period: | January 1979–December 2009, January 2010–December 2010, January 2011–March 2011, April 2011–present (see notes below) |
| Format: | GRIB2 |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data from the NCAR RDA |
| Note: | See NCAR RDA's FAQ and file name conventions pages for 6 hourly and for Monthly (for example, choose "pgbhnl" files for analysis at 0.5°×0.5° and "pgblnl" files for analysis at 2.5°×2.5°) |
| Note: | Official data coverage by CFSR only extends through December 2009, but output from the same analysis system was continued through December 2010 before being migrated to the operational CFSv2 analysis system from January 2011. This transition from CFSR to CFSv2 should not be confused with the transfer of CFSv2 production from NCEP EMC to NCEP operations, which occurred at the start of April 2011. CFSv2 has a different horizontal resolution and includes minor changes to physical parametrizations, but is intended to serve as a continuation of CFSR and can be treated as such for most purposes. To distinguish CFSR and its CFSv2 continuation from other (mainly forecast) applications of the NCEP CFS that do not use the full data assimilation system, CFSR may also be referred to as CDAS-T382 and its continuation as CDAS-T574. (See Section 2.4 of Fujiwara et al., 2017.) |
| References: | Saha et al., 2010 (see also supplementary materials); for the CFSv2, see Saha et al., 2014. |
NCEP–DOE Reanalysis 2
| Data Access: | NOAA ESRL || NCAR RDA 6 hourly • Monthly || RISH |
| Period: | January 1979–present |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data from the NCAR RDA |
| References: | Kanamitsu et al., 2002 |
NCEP–NCAR Reanalysis 1
| Data Access: | NOAA ESRL; see also NOAA ESRL derived || NCAR RDA: 6-hourly • Monthly || RISH |
| Period: | January 1948–present |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data from the NCAR RDA |
| References: | Kalnay et al., 2002; Kistler et al., 2001 (see also references for R2 and CFSR) |
NOAA–CIRES 20th Century Reanalysis (20CR)
| Versions, Period: | Ver. 1: January 1908–December 1958; Ver. 2: November 1869–December 2012; Ver. 2c: 1851–2014; Ver. 3: January 1836–December 2015 |
| Data Access: | Overview || NOAA ESRL: Ver. 2 • Ver. 2c • Ver. 3 || NCAR RDA: Ver. 1 • Ver. 2 • Ver. 2c • Ver. 3 || NERSC: 20CR Ensemble Gateway (full fields for Ver. 2, Ver. 2c, Ver. 3) |
| Format: | GRIB or netCDF |
| Note: | Registration is necessary to download data from the NCAR RDA |
| Note: | See also data information and plotting tools at the NOAA ESRL Physical Sciences Division website. |
| References: | Compo et al., 2011; Slivinski et al., 2019; Slivinski et al., 2021 |
CRA-40 (40-year CMA Atmospheric and Land Reanalysis)
| Data Access: | CMA |
| Period: | 1979-2018 |
| Note: | English translation of the website to English is being prepared now |
| References: | CMA |
NCMRWF (Indian National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting) regional and global reanalyses
| Regional: | IMDAA Data - high resolution (12 km, 1 hourly) regional reanalysis over India, from 1979 to 2018 |
| Global: | NGFS Data - high resolution (25 km, 6 hourly) global reanalysis, from 1999 to 2018 |
| Website: | NCMRWF (includes data access and publication information) |
| Note: | See also the youtube introduction link |
