CLIMATE & WEATHER DATA LINKS

OVERVIEW OF LINKS:

(1)  KATIE'S HOW-TO GUIDE FOR OBTAINING ARCHIVED CLIMATE DATA ONLINE  

(2)  CURRENT WEATHER

(3) CLIMATE REGION MAPS

Trewartha Map of  World Climates  (from The Earth's Problem Climates, 2nd Edition, G. T. Trewartha, 1981)

Trewartha Maps for each continent  

Koeppen Map of World Climates with Climographs (from Man's Domain, A Thematic Atlas of the World, 2nd Edition)

Additional Useful Maps & Links

(4) NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL)  BACKWARD TRAJECTORY SITE

Asian Dust Cloud Site

 

(5) DARTMOUTH FLOOD OBSERVATORY WEBPAGE  

(6) NCEP/NCAR REANALYSIS PROJECT

  CDC NCEP/NCAR REANALYSIS PROJECT SITE    THE CDC (Climate Diagnostics Center) SITE 
 (EASIEST TO USE! -- Follow Directions BELOW)

NCEP/NCAR REANALYSIS -- Descriptions of What's Online  (By starting here you can scroll down through many sections to read descriptions of the variables in the categories listed under Daily Data below)

  TO SEE IT ALL!  Go here to see the full listing of all the different data sets and scroll through a list of all the different variables.  From this page you can narrow your search by data set or by variable.


  DAILY (or 4x daily) GRIDDED DATA -- start with the "Search for Climate Data at CDC" link.  Then to get plots of gridded individual daily data do the following:

  • At the right side of the page in the scrolling menu, select the variable you want to plot
  • Be sure "Group results by variable" (the default) is selected, then 
  • CLICK the SEARCH button and you will be taken to a new page listing options for your selected variable.
  • To make a plot for a single point in time, click on Make Plot or Subset in the: "4 times daily individual observations" and you will be taken to a new page containing the options to make your plot.  You will be able to plot data for one of these four times on any individual day in the database: 0z, 6z, 12z, 18z
  • Some variables have additional options, such as that of plotting a daily average, or plotting at either one of the NCEP Reanalysis Pressure Levels, the NCEP Reanalysis Surface Level, etc. (e.g., see the Air Temperature variable) 
  • NOTE: To be sure you are plotting just a single point in time and not averaging model observations from different times, be sure your time range selections specify the SAME DATE & TIME (e.g. 1950 Jan 01 0z and 1950 Jan 01 0z) as the "begin" and "end" times. 

    CLIMATIC GRIDDED DATA (go here to get plots of monthly data, anomalies, longterm means, etc.):  

Visualize NCEP Data

     CDC ENTRY PAGE FOR CORRELATIONS & COMPOSITES:    http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/PublicData/getpage.pl

        TO GET COMPOSITES AT THIS SITE:

         TO DO CORRELATIONS AT THIS SITE (you can also import your own time series and get correlation maps via this page!)

        Time series plots:   Climate Indices: Monthly Atmospheric and Ocean Time Series
 

  NORTH AMERICAN REGIONAL REANALYSIS WEBSITE (NARR)

 Christopher Godfrey's NCEP Reanalysis Page:   http://weather.ou.edu/~cgodfrey/reanalysis/
        Quick & easy plotting for daily data (1953-2001) -- can plot two variables & make a loop too

How to Make Movies of Your Reanalysis Maps

       

 

 

(7) ECMWF - EUROPEAN CENTRE for MEDIUM-RANGE WEATHER FORECASTS

(8)  NCAR's CLIMATE ANALYSIS SECTION (CAS) DATA CATALOG

Quick Index: A complete outline of CAS data sets. A good place to start.

...or do a more methodical search:

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF):
Upper air and surface data sets from the ECMWF (TOGA and WMO) global analyses and derived products.
National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP, formerly the National Meteorological Center):
Upper air data sets from the NCEP global operational analysis and reanalysis and derived products.
Satellite Data:
Data sets from a number of satellites.
Surface Data:
Surface data sets from a number of sources.
     Climate Indices:
Climate related indices such as NAO, NP, and SOI.

(9) National Climatic Data Center

    CLIMVIS -- includes the following datasets:

National Weather Service Summary of the Day: Approximately 300 currently active National Weather Service stations are included, with a lag time (after end of data month) of about 8-10 weeks. This is our best quality and most complete data for these stations. 16 parameters for as early as 1869 to present are available. The data are summarized based on local standard time (LST) for each calendar day. See global summary of day for additional U.S. stations.  
                                TIME SERIES GRAPHS          CONTOUR/VECTOR GRAPHS
   Climate Divisional Data: Drought indices, precipitation, and temperature data by month for all U.S. climate divisions are included, with a lag time (after end of data month) of about 1 week. Data presented are estimated averages for each division for that month. The period 1895 to present is available.               TIME SERIES GRAPHS   (listing of data also available)

  Global Historical Climatology Network: A comprehensive global baseline climate data set comprised of land surface station observations of temperature, precipitation, and pressure. (Only version 1 precipitation data is currently available.) All GHCN data are on a monthly basis with the earliest record dating from 1697.                 TIME SERIES GRAPHS (listing of data also available)

CLIMVIS Graphing

Selection Process:
1) Select the dataset to browse.
2) Select the plot type.
3) Select the data location.
4) Select the time period.
The time to plot is dependent on the type of plot. Most plots take between 15 to 30 seconds. That of course depends on the internet traffic. The complex time series plots can take 30 to 50 seconds while the complex contour plots can take between 30 to 90 seconds. After the graphics session, the user may download the data from the image by setting the browser options for ftp transfer of data and clicking on the 'download' link at the bottom of the image page. The user may also download the entire NCDC archive data file that the data was extracted from by linking to NCDC's Online Data Access.

(10) CIRES/NOAA - CLIMATE DIAGNOSTICS CENTER
The mission of CDC is to identify the nature and causes of climate variations on time scales ranging from a month to centuries. The goal of this work is to develop the ability to predict important climate variations on these time scales. 

   UNITED STATES INTERACTIVE CLIMATE PAGE

  • Obtain the climatologies of temperature, precipitation and other variables for cities throughout the United States and its possessions.
  • Create maps of monthly US temperature and precipitation products from 1895 to the present.
  • Site has neat topographic maps of each state with the major cities plotted, plus links to each state's Office of Climatology and Regional Climate Center
  • Also has a link for easy access to US Climate Divisions Plotting Page 

(11) GrADS: GRID ANALYSIS AND DISPLAY SYSTEM
The Grid Analysis and Display System (GrADS) is an interactive desktop tool that is currently in use worldwide for the analysis and display of earth science data. GrADS is implemented on all commonly available UNIX workstations, Apple Macintosh, and DOS or Linux based PCs, and is freely distributed over the Internet via anonymous ftp. GrADS provides an integrated environment for access, manipulation, and display of earth science data.

(12) CLIMATE DATA SETS FROM CDIAC (Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center) 

Global Temperature, Precipitation, Sea Level Pressure, and Station Pressure Data

(13) United States Temperature, Precipitation, and Snow Data

(14) Climate Data - U.S.S.R.

(15) Climate Data - People's Republic of China

(16) Cloud and Sunshine Data

(17) Other Climatic Data

  • Antarctic Surface Temperature and Pressure Data (1989), NDP-032 - Abstract
  • Monthly Mean Pressure Reconstructions for Europe (1780-1980) and North America (1858-1980) (1987), NDP-025 - Abstract
  • Tree Ring Chronology Indexes and Reconstructions of Precipitation in Central Iowa, USA (1984), NDP-002 - Abstract
  • An Annotated Inventory of Climatic Indices and Data Sets (1986), TR035 - Abstract
  • A Global Geographic Information System Data Base of Storm Occurrences and Other Climatic Phenomena Affecting Coastal Zones (1991), NDP-035 - Abstract

(18) U.S. Koeppen Climate Classification in GIS

Information about reproducing the Köppen climate classification is presented here. This process was carried out prior to creating the agroclimate classification with the intention of seeing how well the PRISM data would reproduce a well-known and currently accepted climate classification.

(19) ASSORTED SITES

Wind Names

Climate Monitor Online

IPCC Reports

SeaWIFS Images

Resources in Atmospheric Sciences *****

Worldwide Weather & Climate *****

NAO site