Observations

Location: DDC Home > Observed Climate Baseline Datasets

The DDC cannot meet all the possible demands for observed climate data that impacts assessors may need. What is provided are pointers to some existing climate datasets that are in the public domain, as well as access to a new gridded global land climate dataset and some analysis and plotting tools. The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) Global Climate Dataset contains gridded monthly surface climate variables for the period 1901-2000. The dataset can be viewed using the DDC data visualisation pages, and selected components of the dataset can be downloaded.

The CRU Global Climate Dataset can be used to examine climate variability over the twentieth century, to evaluate the simulations of various GCMs over the period 1961-1990 and to combine observed data with GCM projections. Some of the options available include:

Viewing observed fields, which are maps of observed surface climate variables over land areas for 1961-90 and other periods. It is also possible to compare the observed fields with modelled 1961-90 mean fields projected onto the same grid.
Viewing observed time series, which enables time series plots of observed climate to be displayed for the period 1901-2000 for a user-defined region of the global land surface, and for a selection of variables and months or seasons.
Viewing observed and GCM fields combined, which allows the user to combine the observed 1961-90 global land fields with a user-defined GCM change field to generate a future climate field for any timeslice and variable.

A list of other climatological datasets is also included in the DDC. The list is not comprehensive, and is continually being updated. Moreover, its inclusion implies no judgement about the validity or reliability of the data, nor does it imply that these datasets have been "approved" by the IPCC. Users should make their own evaluation based on the available documentation and provenance of each dataset.

Links to other Public-Domain Observed Climate Datasets:

The CRU Global Climate Dataset 1901-2000 Monthly Time Series

Global Historic Climatology Network (GHCN)

International Research Institute for Climate Prediction/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observation at University of Columbia

NCEP Re-analysis Data

British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC)

Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC)

National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Data Support System

Climatic Research Unit (CRU) data

World Data Center - A. Meteorology

Climate Diagnostics Centre at NOAA

Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (COADS) at NOAA