Climatic Research Unit

Observed data archives

This page provides access to a number of observed data sets.

 

Station data:

These observed station data are used in ENSEMBLES as predictands for statistical downscaling and are also useful for validation and as a scenario baseline. Access to station data tends to be more restricted than gridded data.

Links to data archives	Details	Access
Case-study station metadata	Metadata and data links for ENSEMBLES case-study station data sets, e.g., Emilia Romagna, N. Italy. See also D2B.15.	Metadata are public - data resctricted.
ECA&D	European Climate Assessment & Dataset (ECA&D) project. Freely available daily series of temperature and precipitation for more than 4500 series of observations at over 1500 European meteorological stations.	Public
STARDEX indices	Freely-available seasonal indices of extremes: six for precipitation and four for temperature. They are available for 491 European-wide stations for the period 1958-2000.	Public

 

Gridded surface data:

The 25 km daily data set is a major ENSEMBLES deliverable and is expected to be extensively used in the project and beyond. In particular, it provides a major resource for RCM validation.

Links to data archives	Details	Access
ENSEMBLES	The E-OBS gridded data set provides daily maximum and minumum temperature and precipitation at 25 km resolution (for the ENSEMBLES European domain) for the period 1960-2008. It includes uncertainty estimates for each time step and grid-point location. The data set is based on daily station data available from the ECA&D website together with additional (restricted) data obtained by the STARDEX and ENSEMBLES projects.	Gridded data freely available
JRC	European-wide set of daily near-surface meteorological parameters, based on more than 6000 inventoried stations. The dataset starts in 1975 and has a 50km x 50km spatial resolution.	ENSEMBLES partners
ETH	Mesoscale gridded fields of daily precipitation for the European Alps for 1966-1999 developed by Frei and Schar (1998). The grid resolution is 0.5° (about 25 km). Each grid point uses on average 10-15 station observations.	ENSEMBLES partners
CRU	High-resolution gridded monthly data sets freely available from the Climatic Research Unit. The resolution varies from 0.5° to 10' and country scale. The time periods and the number of variables also vary depending on the particular data set, with the longest sets starting in 1901.	Public

 

Reanalysis data:

Reanalysis data is used in ENSEMBLES to provide predictors for calibration of statistical downscaling models and for validation purposes.

Links to data archives	Details	Access
ERA-40	The Level III-B archive is subdivided into four categories: basic 2.5° atmospheric; full Resolution atmospheric; wave; and, atmospheric monthly means. ERA-40 covers the period from September 1957 to August 2002, overlapping the earlier ECMWF re-analysis, ERA-15, 1979 to 1993. See D2B.13 for information on the ENSEMBLES ERA-40 based predictor data set for statistical downscaling.	Free for research purposes
ERA Interim	The newer ERA-interim data are available from 1989 to present.	Free for research purposes

 

Reports:

A series of ENSEMBLES deliverable reports provides technical descriptions and background on the daily gridded data set.

Links to reports	Details	Access
D5.8	Assessment of the available station density for the gridding and daily data quality/homogeneity.	Public
D5.9	Report on the analysis of possible gridding methods.	Public
D5.18	Daily gridded datasets for surface climate variables covering Europe for the greater part. (Also Major Milestone 5.3 of ENSEMBLES).	ENSEMBLES partners
D5.20	Note on observational data collected for the ENSEMBLES daily dataset for Europe.	Public
D5.23	Detailed comparison of extremes in daily station observations and in gridded daily data.	Public

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